The leaders of a Muslim clan in the southern Philippines where martial law was imposed following a massacre were charged with rebellion yesterday, a justice department official said.
The patriarch of the clan, Andal Ampatuan Sr, and one of his sons were among 24 people charged with rebellion in a court in the southern city of Cotabato, Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor told reporters.
Andal Sr and four other clan members were detained on Saturday, hours after Philippine President Gloria Arroyo placed their stronghold of Maguindanao province under martial law.
Arroyo had said she needed to use military powers to quell a rebellion led by the Ampatuans, whose 3,000-strong militia force had threatened to attack if their leaders were arrested for the Nov 23 massacre of 57 people.
One Ampatuan son, Andal Ampatuan Jr, was already detained and charged with 25 counts of murder before martial law was imposed.
Another son of the patriarch, Zaldy Ampatuan, the governor of an autonomous Muslim area in the southern Philippines, was one of the 24 people charged with rebellion, Blancaflor said.
Philippine police yesterday identified 161 suspects in the massacre, including government militiamen led by members of the Ampatuan clan.
Witnesses have identified Andal Ampatuan Jr as leading the group of militiamen who stopped his rival’s convoy that included 30 journalists, national police chief Jesus Verzosa told reporters.
He said witnesses told investigators Ampatuan himself shot some of the victims in Ampatuan township — named after his family that has ruled the impoverished province unopposed for years. The bodies troops found hours later bore bullet wounds in the mouth and chest fired from close range, Verzosa said.
Police also said the bodies of some of the 21 women were mutilated, including their sexual organs. Authorities earlier said at least five women may have been raped.
Police said the militiamen, most of them still at large, were identified by witnesses on Tuesday. Their names will be submitted to prosecutors to be included in the charge sheet and court warrants of arrest.
Meanwhile, Commission on Human Rights Chairwoman Leila de Lima said the Ampatuan clan was suspected of killing at least 200 other people during its brutal eight-year rule over Maguindanao.
“Everybody was aware [of the killings], but they have been tolerated,” de Lima told reporters.
“That is why we want full accountability now. The years of tolerance and neglect are over,” de Lima said.
She said witnesses had given accounts of people being buried alive and slain with chainsaws in the “killing fields.”
De Lima hit out at the government’s long alliance with the Ampatuans, saying reports of political opponents and others going missing in Maguindanao had circulated for years.
“It was too dangerous for our investigators to validate these reports earlier,” she said. “But now we are taking advantage of the military security to go and investigate.”
She said independent forensics experts deputized by her agency would begin excavating two alleged “killing fields” in the next two weeks.
“We are looking at a minimum of 200 [bodies],” de Lima said. “These are victims of the same clan and the private armies.”
Among those missing and presumed killed was a former Ampatuan lawyer who had wanted to expose the clan, she said. Others were ordinary people who fell out of favor with the family.
“Some were allegedly killed with the use of chainsaws, and others were buried alive,” de Lima said, citing witnesses now in her agency’s protection. “Given the right opportunity there will be witnesses who can exactly pinpoint these mass graves.”
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