Zaldy Ampatuan to be arraigned Wednesday, 3 years after massacre

Three years after the Maguindanao massacre that killed 58 people, one of the suspects, former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Governor Rizaldy Ampatuan, is set to be arraigned this Wednesday. In her order, Quezon City Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the Regional Trial Court Branch 221 said Ampatuan's arraignment "can no longer be deferred" in light of the respective rulings of the Court of Appeals last April 18 and the Supreme Court last August 15 that denied with finality his plea to be removed as an accused in the murder trial. Ampatuan's camp had actually sought an explanation from the high court why both his petition for review and motion for reconsideration were respectively denied on August 15 and June 25. The Supreme Court, however, denied Ampatuan's request yet again on November 14, saying it does not need to explain itself, especially when it found no reversible error on a lower court's decision. "Let the arraignment of accused Datu Zaly 'Puti' Ampatuan be set on December 12, 2012 at 9 a.m. to be held at Quezon City Jail-Annex, Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig City," Solis-Reyes said in a five-page order dated December 4. In his repeated plea to be stricken off the charge sheet, Ampatuan claimed the conduct of the preliminary investigation on him was riddled with "procedural irregularities," and that government prosecutors' finding of probable cause to charge him in court was "incorrect." "He is... praying to defer his arraignment until such time that the finding of probable cause made by the Department of Justice becomes final, and to eventually declare his continued detention unlawful," Ampatuan said in a motion dated April 17, 2012 seeking to reverse Solis-Reyes' omnibus motion that denied his earlier request for the determination of probable cause. Zaldy and other prominent members of the Ampatuan clan, including his patriarch-father and two brothers, were accused – along with hundreds of local policemen and militiamen – of hatching and carrying out the killings of the 58 people, 32  of them journalists, in Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town on November 23, 2009. The carnage is regarded as the worst single-day election-related violence in the Philippines. The victims were part of a convoy supposed to file the certificate of candidacy of the Ampatuan clan's political rival, then Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, who eventually got elected as governor. Massacre suspects' trial is currently being held inside Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City, where a makeshift court room was built just below the detention cells of the detained suspects in the massacre. Of the 196 accused, only 103 have so far been detained. Of these suspects, only 81 have been arraigned, including the first two Ampatuan clan members – patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr and son Andal Ampatuan Jr. If his arraignment pushes through, Zaldy Ampatuan becomes the third Ampatuan clan member and 82nd overall to be arraigned. — LBG, GMA News