MILF ready to submit Mamasapano clash report to Malaysia

SULTAN KUDARAT, Maguindanao -- A Moro Islamic Liberation Front panel has finished its initial report on the Mamasapano clash, MILF vice chairman Ghadzali Jaafar said Wednesday in Camp Darapanan, the MILF's main headquarters.

That report, prepared by a seven-member special investigating team headed by an ulama or religious leader, will be submitted to Malaysia, the third-party facilitator of the peace talks between the MILF and the Philippine government.

He said the move is "in accordance with the protocols in the peace process."

Forty-four policemen were killed when a covert operation to arrest two high-profile terrorist targets in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, last January 25 resulted in a clash with MILF rebels and its breakaway group, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

The clash cast a shadow on the government-MILF peace talks, highlighted by the signing of a peace agreement in March last year.

On Wednesday, Jaafar said there may be a follow-up to the report later on.

Pressed for details, Jafaar replied: "I cannot tell you now."

P/Dir. Benjamin Magalong, who heads a police panel investigating the clash, said he hopes he can get a copy of the report before the police Board of Inquiry finishes its own.

He has said though that the BOI's investigation has been "very, very, very comprehensive."

Chief MILF peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal has previously said that the report was near completion but needed the approval of MILF chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, who was out of the country on pilgrimage.

Iqbal has also said the investigation report, or at least the executive summary, will be made public. —KBK, GMA News