PNP BOI chief Magalong willing to resign if proven SAF didn’t kill Marwan

The chairman of the PNP Board of Inquiry which probed the deadly Mamasapano clash is willing to resign as chief investigator if it will be proven that the PNP Special Action Force (SAF) was not responsible for killing suspected Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan.

On Thursday, Director Benjamin Magalong, the former chief of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), stood by the BOI’s findings despite claims by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that Marwan, who was the subject of the covert police operation carried out by the SAF, was executed by his own aides.

 

“I think we have covered everything [in the BOI report]  and we are very, very confident insofar as ‘yung killing of Marwan—definitely SAF ang nakapatay,” Magalong told reporters at the sidelines of the Department of Interior and Local Government’s budget briefing in the House of Representatives.

 

Magalong, who now heads the PNP Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management, said he will readily step down if there is conclusive proof that the SAF did not kill Marwan because such a development will cast doubt on his credibility as an investigator.

 

“If proven otherwise, willing ako mag-step down. Ganoon ang conviction ko. Unang-una, pag proven otherwise, lumabas na hindi pala [ang SAF ang nakapatay], ano pang gamit ko as investigator? Masisira yung credibility ko as investigator, and the head of investigating body which looked into the Mamasapano incident,” he said.

 

The MILF had claimed Marwan’s aide was responsible for killing him after President Benigno Aquino III said in a recent forum that the government was studying an “alternative version” of the bloody Jan. 25 encounter.

 

Former SAF chief Director Getulio Napeñas, however, denied the MILF’s claim, saying it was his men who neutralized the wanted terrorist.

 

The clash left over 60 individuals, including 44 SAF troopers, dead. — RSJ, GMA News