14-year-old tagged in bet's murder in NCotabato

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Investigators have tagged a 14-year-old boy as the gunman that shot dead Sunday night a candidate for the municipal council of North Cotabato’s troubled Banisilan town.

Senior Supt. Danny Peralta, North Cotabato’s provincial police director, said probers have also established that Omar Gafur was a victim of “vendetta killing,” apparently connected to a standing rido or clan war.

“By all indication, the murder of Mr. Gafur was not election-related,” Peralta said.

He said the suspect in the murder of Gafur is an adolescent.

“We are now coordinating with the Department of Social Welfare and Development. We have to initiate police action against the suspect with the guidance of DSWD,” Peralta said.

He said the suspect is a member of another Moro clan hostile to the Gafur family.

Gafur, who was to aspire for a seat in the municipal council of Banisilan under the United Nationalist Alliance, was on his way home from a campaign engagement when the suspect approached him from behind and repeatedly shot him with a .45 caliber pistol.

Gafur died on the spot from multiple gunshot wounds.

Peralta said the suspect and a companion who acted as a lookout walked away from the scene.

Peralta said they have deployed combat-ready members of the Region 12 police office in Banisilan as part of the security measures to prevent any escalation of hostilities in the town.

Two security escorts of a re-electionist councilor in the same town were wounded in an ambush about a month ago. The councilor survived the ambush unscathed and was quick to blame Moro guerrillas identified with a rival clan as behind the attempt on his life.

Banisilan accounts for most number of still unresolved “rido”  involving armed Moro clans in North Cotabato.