Manila: The family of a 24-year-old Swiss student who had been reported missing since September 2011 appears resigned to the idea that their son is already dead, they said however, that they remain unmoved in their quest for justice.
While it remains to be proven if the body found in a desolate area in Antipolo City east of Manila is that of Alexander Reich, his family said that this does not diminish their resolve to seek justice.
Around September 22, 2011, Reich, a language student, went missing after spending time out with what had been described by his family as “new acquaintances.”
Reich had just arrived in the Philippines in August 2011. On September 21, 2011 he left his flat in suburban Quezon City’s Timog district, since then, he had been reported missing and had become, on the request of the Swiss Embassy, the subject of a search that involved CIDG.
In mid-December, Reichs’s father Manuel, offered a P200,000 (Dhs 16,861) reward for information on his missing son.
On Monday, January 2, 2012, over three months after Alexander was reported missing by the Swiss Embassy in Manila, the Criminal Investigation Detection Group (CIDG) of the national police came across with information that a Caucasian matching the description of the young Swiss man had been found by authorities in Antipolo City east of Manila.
But Alexander’s family is convinced that the body was that of the Swiss student.
“We are very sad. We finally got to know that Alex has been shot in the night of September 22. The circumstances are unclear yet and there are still open questions about his death,” the family of Reich said in their website alexmissing.com.
The family vowed to seek justice as it sought the cooperation of authorities on the matter as well as the online community.
“The responsible people for this murder must be found. Please help us to find them by spreading the story and the questions throughout your contacts by sending the URL of this site.
A report by the ABS-CBN News quoted Chief Inspector Rodelio Marcelo, chief of the Quezon City Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, that they received a call from Antipolo police on Monday informing them about a shooting victim who matched the description of the missing Reich.
It added that witnesses had heard a gunshot around 3:30 a.m. of September 22 and saw the body of the Caucasian man sprawled on the ground as a car sped away from the scene.
According to the alexmissing.com, Alex grew up in Brüttisellen, a small village near Zürich, Switzerland.
“After school he first worked on a farm and paid for his own college education as a salesman in the retail business. He likes to spend his time together with friends, talking, making parties und enjoy his life. He has his parents, his brother, his girlfriend and a lot of friends in Switzerland,” it said.
