Philippine authorities, under intense public pressure to make arrests in the country’s worst election massacre, said yesterday they are investigating a member of a powerful clan allied with the government along with four police commanders.
Officials recovered 11 more bodies yesterday — six in a large pit buried alongside three vehicles and five in a mass grave — bringing the death toll in Monday’s attack on an election caravan to 57, including 18 journalists.
The military also announced it would disarm two government-armed civilian militia companies, or about 200 men, in southern Maguindanao province, which is ruled by the powerful Ampatuan clan.
No suspects have been formally named in the killings.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo vowed justice for the victims and declared a national day of mourning for them.
The dead included the wife and two sisters of Maguindanao province gubernatorial candidate Ismael Mangudadatu and 18 Filipino journalists who were accompanying the caravan to file his election papers.
It is the highest number of reporters killed in a single attack anywhere in the world, media groups said.
Mangudadatu, after receiving death threats, had sent his wife and relatives instead to submit his candidacy.
He wanted to challenge clan rival Andal Ampatuan Jr, who currently serves as a town mayor and whose family has ruled the province unopposed since 2001 with an iron fist backed up by private armies and legions of bodyguards.
Mangudadatu said four people whom he refused to identify told him that the convoy was stopped by dozens of gunmen loyal to Ampatuan.
Police said they are investigating reports that Ampatuan, four police commanders, and dozens of police and pro-government militiamen were among the gunmen who blocked the convoy.
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