• Home
• Business
• National
• Metro
• Opinion
• Sports
• Entertainment
• Living

TWENTY-FIVE counts of murder were filed yesterday by the Department of Justice before the Cotabato regional trial court against Andal Ampatuan Jr., mayor of Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao, who is believed to be the mastermind of the massacre in the province last week.

The count can still go up as more witnesses are coming out and filing complaints, said Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera.

The case was raffled to Branch 15 of the Cotabato RTC, in the sala of Judge Melanio Guerrero, of the Sultan Kudarat RTC, who had just been designated last Friday by Chief Justice Reynato Puno.

Branch 15 of Cotabato RTC, which has jurisdiction over Shariff Aguak in Maguindanao, was originally vacant, while its pairing judge, reportedly a father-in-law of Ampatuan, inhibited from the case.

Each count of murder was based on the 25 complaint-affidavits of families of the victims, among them Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu, whose wife was among the 57 killed Monday last week.

Esmael’s relatives, accompanied by a number of media men, were on their way to Shariff Aguak town on November 23 to file his certificate of candidacy when they were stopped by some 100 armed men then herded to the remote hillside Salman village where they were killed.

Ampatuan Jr. is in the custody of the NBI in Manila.

In one of the Informations filed in court, the DOJ accused Ampatuan of conspiring with several John Does in killing the Ampatuans and media men. It said the killing was done with "evident premeditation" and the perpetrators took advantage of their "superior strength" to "willfully, unlawfully and feloniously attack, assault and shoot the victims" and herding them to an "uninhabited place."

The Information was signed by Senior State Prosecutor Leo Dacera, chairman of the DOJ investigating panel, and General Santos City prosecutor Edilberto Jamora, who found probable cause to indict Ampatuan.

Among evidence considered by the panel were autopsy reports, photographs of the victims, cause of their death, as well as the positive identification of Ampatuan and his cohorts by witnesses.

Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera said the autopsy report on Mangudadatu’s wife, Bai Genalin Tiamson-Mangudadatu, showed she sustained 17 gunshot wounds in different parts of her body and was shot at close range. She was among the most brutally murdered based on the autopsy report.

"This would show the manner of the killing. Hindi isa lang. Kung isa lang marami ka pang theory. Pero ito, 17 shot wounds. Hindi ka talaga bubuhayin noon," she said.

MORE NAMES

Devanadera said the names of more members of the Ampatuan clan and a number of several other people are appearing in statements of witnesses. It was not surprising, she said, based on statements that there were more than 100 behind the massacre. "Some of them pulled the trigger, but some of them were part of the group, although walang specific mention that they pulled the trigger," she said.

Devanadera said those being named by witnesses are not yet

The PNP said it would recommend the filing of criminal charges against "a number" of Ampatuan clan members and seven others.

Deputy Director General Jefferson Soriano, PNP deputy chief for operations, said cases against them are being prepared for filing with the DOJ.

FOUR AMPATUANS

Senior Supt. Erickson Velasquez, chief of the CIDG Criminal Investigation and Detection Division, hinted that four more members of the Ampatuan family will possibly be recommended charged.

He did not name them.

But a prepared affidavit of two Maguindanao-based policemen under the restrictive custody of the CIDG in Camp Crame, named three more members of the Ampatuan clan as having involvement in the killings.

The affidavits were from Chief Insp. Sukarno Ali Dicay, former deputy provincial police chief of Maguindanao, and Insp. Rex Ariel Tabao Diongon, the former group director of the 1508th provincial mobile group.

The two implicated Ulo Ampatuan, a grandson of Ampatuan Sr., governor of Maguindanao; Kanor Ampatuan, vice mayor of Salido town; and Bahnarin Ampatuan, mayor of Mamasapano town.

They also mentioned in their prepared statements the names of Muhamad Sangki, said to be the mayor of Datu Abdullah Sangki town; Tammy Masukat, said to be the commander of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit in the province; PO1 Abbey Guadem, Datu Unsay municipal police station officer in charge; and some still unidentified members of the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion and the local Special CAFGU Armed Auxiliary.

VALUABLES TAKEN

The policemen, in the prepared affidavit, said they were manning a police checkpoint in Barangay Malating, Ampatuan town in the morning of November 23 when they stopped for routine check a convoy which they later learned was that of the Mangudadatus.

Shortly after, a group of some 100 men in green camouflage uniforms emerged from nowhere, and at gunpoint ordered the vehicles’ occupants and started to divest them of valuables, including laptops and mobile phones.

They said they were helpless as the armed men told them they would be killed if they interfered.

"Wag kayong makikialam kung hindi mamamatay kayo," Dicay said in the prepared affidavit.

AMPATUAN JR. AGAIN TAGGED

Dicay said the leader of the armed men was Ampatuan Jr., whom he described to be brandishing a baby Armalite rifle with a grenade launcher, and ordered the victims to lie down on the ground while pointing his gun at them.

Sensing that the gunmen might shoot the victims, Dicay said he tried to stop Ampatuan’s group.

"Wag Datu, wag Datu. Wag kayong magpapaputok," Dicay said.

Dicay said the killers did not fire a shot then, as the victims were ordered to go back to their vehicles.

"Sila ay muling pinasakay ng mga sasakyan at mga kasama na nila Mayor Andal Jr. ang nagmaneho. Hindi po namin alam kung bakit dinala nila ang mga tao at inisip ko na lang na sila ay dadalhin nila Mayor Andal Jr. sa kanyang opisina," Dicay said.

"At hindi ko rin naisip na sila ay papatayin dahil alam naman nila Mayor Andal Jr. na nakita ko na dinala nila ang mga tao. At ang karamihan sa kanila ay mga babae at sa mga Muslim, malaking kasalanan kay Allah na pumatay ng babae," he added.

He said when Ampatuan Jr.’s group left with the victims, he and Diongon stayed in their area.

He said he and Diongon could not report the incident for fear they would be killed.

Diongon identified two of the gunmen as Ampatuan Jr. and Vice Mayor (Kanor) Ampatuan of Salibo municipality whom he described to be wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, and who was armed with an M-16 Bushmaster automatic rifle.

Diongon said when the gunmen left the scene, Ampatuan Jr. told them, "Huwag kayong magpapadaan kung hindi ay papatayin ko kayong lahat."

Diongon said that before leaving, the mayor approached one of the vans and asked "Nasaan dito ang misis ni Toto?" apparently referring to Genalyn Mangudadatu, Esmael’s wife.

He added the mayor herded the woman into another van while asking one of his men to frisk her for a cell phone. The frisking stopped when the woman told her that what she had in her pocket was not a phone but her money.

Diongon said the drivers of the vehicles which were blocked were made to ride in a pick-up.

TRO SOUGHT

The lawyer of the Ampatuan clan asked the Supreme Court to stop the DOJ from arresting his clients without warrants from the courts.

The petitioners were Datu Andal Ampatuan Sr., Norodin "Nords Ampatuan" Datumanong, Akmad Ampatuan, Saudi Ampatuan Jr., Bahnarin Ampatuan Jr., Sajid Islam Ampatuan, Akmad "Tato" Ampatuan Sr., and Zaldy Uy Ampatuan.

Lawyer Philip Sigfrid Fortun said the respondents acted without jurisdiction and with grave abuse of discretion in ordering or causing the warrantless arrest by the AFP, PNP and NBI of the petitioners especially because no preliminary investigation of charges against them had been conducted nor has the case been filed before the proper courts.

• Business Insight
• National