Mayor and son charged with Ces Drilon kidnap fire lawyer

Manila: A father and son implicated in the abduction of a television news crew fired their lawyer for allegedly giving information to the press without consulting them.

Mayor Alvarez Isnaji of Sulu's Indanan town and his son Haider sacked their lawyer Firdausi Abbas less than a week after they hired the latter.

The Isnajis are being accused by television reporter Ces Drilon of ABS-CBN Network, her cameraman Angelo Valderama, driver Jimmy Encarnacion and Mindanao State University Professor Octavio Dinampo of abducting them in Sulu.

A report aired by television station QTV on Friday said lawyers Joe Aspiras and Joven Diamante have been picked by the Isnajis to represent them in court.

The two lawyers showed a letter from the Isnajis containing the statement that Abbas' services have been terminated.

Aspiras and Diamante is the third batch of lawyers who have been hired by the Isnajis in less than two weeks. Immediately after Drilon and her two co-workers filed cases of abduction and kidnap for ransom against the Isnajis on June 19, the father and son hired lawyer Ernesto Francisco.

But Francisco on June 21 announced that he is resigning from the case due to professional issues. He said he is a corporate lawyer and is not very well versed on the nuances of handling a case involving clients from Sulu.

Yesterday Aspiras and Diamante denied a statement issued earlier by Abbas that a government official had paid 15 million pesos (Dh1.23 million) in exchange for the ABS-CBN news crew's release as well as another kidnap victim, Dinampo.

As a policy, the government prohibits the payment of ransom to kidnappers. The four abduction victims were released in two batches.

Valderama was released on June 12 and the remaining hostages were freed on June 18. The four were abducted by a group of armed men in Maimbung, Sulu on June 8, while on the way to interview a leader of the Abu Sayyaf group.

Immediately after the kidnap victims were released, Haider had admitted that the government had paid a token amount of 100,000 pesos to the abductors as "board and lodging", fee.