MANILA — The alleged recruiter of slain overseas Filipino worker (OFW) Joanna Demafelis is not yet a suspect, the head of the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) said Thursday.
For now, Agnes Tuballes, who has voluntarily turned herself in, is considered a material witness in the ongoing investigation against the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Global E-Human Resources, Inc., the agency that deployed Demafelis to Kuwait sometime in 2016, Director Roel Obusan said, according to a Radyo Pilipinas report.
Tuballes has vehemently denied being Demafelis’ recruiter, saying that she merely referred the victim to the agency and received a referral fee as a result.
At the time of Tuballes’ referral, Demafelis was already working as a domestic helper in Hong Kong.
Earlier, President Rodrigo R. Duterte directed the National Bureau of Investigation to look for the local recruiters of the slain housemaid following the arrest of her employers, Lebanese national Nader Essam Assaf and his Syrian wife, Mona Hassoun, last week.
The two are the principal suspects in the death of Demafelis, whose body was found inside a freezer in an abandoned building in Kuwait City early this year. (Priam Nepomuceno/PNA)
