Manilla, February 03: A politician accused of massacring dozens of people in the southern Philippines denied more murders Wednesday as prosecutors charged him with the deaths of 16 other people.
Andal Ampatuan Jnr., a member of a politically powerful Muslim clan that was once allied to President Gloria Arroyo, impassively entered fresh pleas of “not guilty” as relatives of some of the dead wept outside the courtroom.
He now stands accused of ordering his armed followers to kill 57 people in the southern province of Maguindanao on November 23 last year in order to prevent a rival from running against him in May elections.
State prosecutors said some of the cases had only been filed this week because of difficulties finding investigators who were outside the influence of the defendant’s powerful family.
The dead included Ampatuan’s rival’s wife and pregnant sister, as well as 30 journalists.
At the trial Wednesday the defendant, who is in his mid-40s, wore a blue shirt as he talked with his lawyers.
Earlier, Ampatuan’s rival, Esmael Mangudadatu, testified that he had previously been warned by Arroyo and her chief aides that the Ampatuans were “dangerous” and that he should not cross them.
He also said that the military and police had refused to give security to his relatives and the journalists accompanying them as they went to file his candidacy.
Prosecutors allege the defendant and up to 100 members of his private army stopped the convoy on a highway in Maguindanao, kidnapped the victims at gunpoint and took them to a hillside where they were shot dead beside ready-dug mass graves.
Mangudadatu told the court that he personally called Arroyo by mobile phone the day after the massacre to inform her what happened. He did not say what her reaction was.
“I could not believe the highest office of the government could not serve or protect the people,” Myrna Reblando, the widow of one of the slain journalists, said.
“There were intelligence reports saying this would happen, that these people would be waylaid. She could have done something. These were her people,” she said.
Asked if she was referring to Arroyo, she sobbed: “Yes.”
Before the killings, the Ampatuans were close political allies of Arroyo, who armed and used them to help contain Muslim separatist rebels.
They were expelled from Arroyo’s ruling party after the massacre and the government disarmed their private army.
–Agencies