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| Norwegian teenager Mikael Troy Johansen Rasay was fatally shot outside a Manila bar. Photograph: AP |
Mikael Troy Johansen Rasay, from Oslo and of Filipino ancestry, shot by off-duty officer in brawl outside bar, officials say
An off-duty police officer is the main suspect in the killing of an 18-year-old Norwegian tourist of Filipino descent outside a bar in a Manila suburb where he tried to stop a fight, the chief investigator said on Wednesday.
Police said Mikael Troy Johansen Rasay had left the bar with friends early Sunday when he saw a commotion across the street and tried to break up a fight between a man and a woman.
Chief Inspector Rodelio Marcelo, head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit of the Quezon City police, said that Rasay, who stood 6ft 3in and with an athletic build, knocked the man down in a fist-fight. A second man also fought with Rasay but the Norwegian teenager also knocked him down, Marcelo said.
Gunfire rang out moments later, and witnesses reported seeing another man chasing and shooting Rasay and reloading his pistol, he said.
He said Rasay slumped to the ground after he was hit three times in the back with two of the bullets exiting his body.
Marcelo said the suspect escaped in a car. Rasay died of his wounds after being brought to a hospital and another person was wounded by a stray bullet. Investigators recovered about a dozen spent shells from a 9mm pistol at the scene.
He said the man who was wounded and a security guard at a nearby establishment were able to identify the gunman from a picture obtained from the national police headquarters. A woman companion of Rasay was expected to also identify the suspect, who is a Manila officer.
Marcelo told the Associated Press the police will file a murder complaint against the suspect. State prosecutors will conduct preliminary investigations to determine if there is enough evidence to bring the case to court.
Rasay's father, Joseph Troy Rasay, urged the suspect to surrender. "We want to know why he shot my son in the back. Mikael was unarmed," he said. "He made sure my son was dead by shooting him in the back."
He said his son is the eldest of his three children and was a college student in Oslo.
He said his son was fond of his home country and arrived on 16 July for a vacation and was scheduled to return home to Norway on Monday.
"He said, 'Papa, ... I want to show my friends in Norway how beautiful it is in the Philippines,'" he told the AP.
Dozens of friends and relatives have flocked to the Rasay family home in Tanza township in Cavite province near Manila for the wake.
