Court tackles Andal transfer

MANILA, Philippines - The Ampatuan clan’s petition to defer transfer of their detention to Metro Manila will be heard this morning in Camp Crame as ordered by Judge Vivencio Baclig of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 77.

The Ampatuans, implicated in a rebellion case, have filed a petition to defer their custodial transfer to Metro Manila until a real reason or cause of such transfer is established.

Based on court records, clan patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr. is detained in Camp Panaca Hospital in Davao City. The rest are in Camp Lina in General Santos City and Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao.

Apart from the 11 who are detained, there are 16 others who are out on bail.

The rebellion charges against members of the Ampatuan clan were raffled off to Baclig’s sala on Tuesday.

The alleged rebellion became the government’s basis for declaring martial law in Maguindanao following the arrest of Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., prime suspect in the massacre of 57 people, including 30 journalists, in Maguindanao last Nov. 23.

Meanwhile, at least 30 witnesses for the prosecution from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) will give testimonies against Ampatuan Jr., said lawyer Ricardo Diaz, chief of the NBI’s Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) and current spokesman for the Maguindanao massacre.

“There will be 30 witnesses. If there will be two witnesses per day, then this would take about 15 hearing days. The witnesses are from the NBI and PNP side,” said Diaz in an interview at NBI headquarters in Manila.

The hearing on the case for the Petition for bail of Ampatuan Jr. is scheduled every Wednesday in Quezon City, and is expected to end soon. The murder trial will start right after this.

As for the reported threat that Ampatuan Jr. would be sprung from detention in an attack on NBI headquarters, Diaz said they have already identified the groups who could be behind such a plan.

Diaz, however, refused to divulge the identity of these groups.

Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu has said that the suspects are a group of policemen allied with the Ampatuans.

“We are closely coordinating and sitting down with them (military and police) about twice a month. This is one of the things we’ve discussed with them, on the possibility of links of the Ampatuans to the MILF. There are persistent reports that those at large may have gone to the area of the MILF. But I could not say with utmost certainty that they are linked with the MILF. This is just an intelligence report,” said Diaz. With Sandy Araneta