COTABATO CITY ,Philippines – Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo assured the public yesterday that investigators would exhaust all efforts to identify the brains behind the Jan. 10 ambush of Cotabato City Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema.
Robredo, in an interview with Catholic radio station dxMS, said a special investigating team is pursuing several leads based on the pieces of evidence recovered from the crime scene and from the alleged assailant, Zermin Abdullah. Abdullah was killed when Sema’s security escorts fought back.
Robredo said he is optimistic that investigators led by Senior Superintendent Robert Kiunisala, deputy director for operations of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Region 12, would soon identify the brains in the ambush of Sema.
Robredo also appealed for sobriety among Sema’s supporters including members of the Moro National Liberation Front, saying investigators should be allowed to finish their probe.
Sources from the PNP Region 12 said responding policemen who recovered Abdullah’s mobile phone have yet to turn it over to the investigating team.
Abdullah was said to be wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying an assault rifle with a noise suppressor when he pulled off the ambush.
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao officer-in-charge Mujiv Hataman earlier said Abdullah was a career service employee of the Office of Southern Cultural Communities in ARMM.
Abdullah, who hails from Maguindanao’s Talitay town, was involved in peace-building projects in remote areas in Maguindanao.
Hataman said he has ordered the director of the ARMM police, Chief Superintendent Bienvenido Latag, to help in the investigation.
Sema is recuperating from a bullet wound in the right jaw. He cannot eat or talk yet because of the braces the doctors have attached to prevent any facial deformity, according to his wife Sandra Sema.
“By Allah’s grace, the vice mayor is out of danger and is now recuperating,” said Sandra, who is the incumbent congressional representative of the first district of Maguindanao.
Sandra had claimed that local authorities failed to secure her husband from the time he was ambushed until he was airlifted to Davao City.