Some 90 commanders and members of Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and private armed groups have been summoned by the Department of Justice to a preliminary investigation hearing next month to answer the criminal charges filed against them in connection with the killing of the Special Action Force commandos during the Mamasapano clash last Jan. 25.
In a subpoena, the DoJ panel of prosecutors directed the respondents to answer the complaint of direct assault with murder and theft filed against them by a government fact-finding team last month.
Prosecutor General Claro Arellano, chief of the DoJ’s prosecutorial arm, said the hearings for the preliminary investigation have been set on Nov. 11 and 27, both at 10 a.m. at the DoJ’s executive lounge.
According to Arellano, the subpoena on the MILF respondents were served through the MILF leadership or the Coordination Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities. The subpoena for BIFFs and PAGs, on the other hand, was served through Mamasapano Mayor Benzar Ampatuan.
The DoJ panel is chaired by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Rosanne Balauag with Assistant State Prosecutors Aldrin Evangelista, Benito Oliver Sales III, Rasssendell Rex Gingoyon and Alexander Suarez as members.
The preliminary investigation hearing will determine if there exists probable cause to warrant the filing of the charges of direct assault with murder and theft against the respondents.
Facing the DoJ probe are 13 commanders of MILF and six commanders of BIFF. But the names of the respondents were not made public so as to prevent them from evading possible prosecution.
The respondents were accused of acting “in conspiracy with one another to attack, employ force, seriously intimidate or resist the 35 SAF commandos, who were uniformed police officers and, thus persons in authority.”
The fact-finding team of prosecutors and National Bureau of Investigation agents based the report on accounts of eyewitnesses—including alias Marathon—who identified the liable MILF and BIFF commanders and have been placed under witness protection program.
The viral videos of the encounter that circulated in social media sites also helped in the investigation and that their sources have been traced.
Based on the results of the probe, the killings of the SAF commandos appeared to be “spontaneous and not an institutional act of the MILF.”
The charges covered the cases of 35 slain SAF men who belonged to the 55th SAF company that engaged MILF and BIFF fighters and PAGs in the cornfields of Barangay Tukanalipao.
Earlier this month, the fact-finding team has released its second report involving the cases of the nine other slain commandos from the 84th SAF company in Barangay Pidsandawan as well as the five civilians and 18 MILF fighters who were also killed during the clash. No one was
charged because probers failed to secure witnesses to identify the killers.
