This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

A village watchman in the central Philippines allegedly mistook an actor playing a masked gunman in a British film for a real assassin and fatally shot him, police said today.

Watchman Eddie Cuizon tried to accost Filipino actor Kirk Abella late on Saturday, then shot him as the actor was directed to speed away on a motorcycle with a masked driver, said community police chief Alexis Relado of Cebu City's Parian district.

Cuizon, 52, told police he had been woken up by a concerned citizen who reported the presence of armed men in his community.

He told police he saw two masked men on a motorcycle and approached them but they sped away and he stumbled as he tried to stop them, injuring his knee. He fired at Abella when the actor pulled out a gun, which turned out to be made of plastic, Relado said.

Many street killings in the Philippines, including those of political activists and journalists, have been perpetrated by motorcycle-riding gunmen.

Abella, 32, was one of the actors in the movie Going Somewhere, being shot by British theatre and film director Alan Lyddiard in Cebu, Relado said.

Lyddiard's website says the movie is about a fictional documentary film-maker's travails in Cebu, where he plans to make a movie about the first circumnavigation of the world by Ferdinand Magellan, whose voyage to the Philippines led to its colonisation by Spain. Magellan was killed by a native chief on Mactan island near Cebu in 1521.

Neither Lyddiard nor any members of his crew, including a Filipino woman who had arranged for police assistance with traffic and crowd control in Parian, could be reached for comment.

Cuizon will be charged with homicide and for violation of a gun ban, Relado said.