NBI ready to identify remains of 4 Filipinos killed in Libya

BY JEFFREY DAMICOG

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is ready to send a forensic team to Libya in the hope of determining whether the remains found there are indeed of the four Filipinos kidnapped and killed by Islamic State (ISIS) extremists.

NBI Deputy Director Ferdinand M. Lavin said on Wednesday the agency is “willing to send a team depending on the request of DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) and the approval from DoJ (Department of Justice).”

“We are ready to deploy anytime, full forensic depending on the need of requesting party,” the NBI spokesperson said.

In the meantime, Lavin said the NBI has yet to receive the official request from the DFA.

“We have initial coordination with the immediate family members and relatives of the victims,” the deputy director revealed.

The Philippine Embassy in Libya announced that it was able to locate last Monday the gravesites where the reported Filipinos were buried at a cemetery in the eastern coastal city of Derna.

The Embassy said it has been informed way back in 2018 by the Libyan Red Crescent that the four Filipinos could be among those it recovered and buried.

But due to the unstable security situation, the Embassy could not send a team to Derna.

The four Filipinos are employed by the Austrian contracting firm Value Added Oil Services (VAOS).

They were reported missing along with two co-workers from Austria and the Czech Republic when ISIS militants attacked the Ghani Oil Field in Southern Libya on March 6, 2015.

Since then, nothing was heard about what happened to them until a laptop seized from an ISIS fighter in Derna was found to contain a video which showed their execution.