(CNN Philippines) — The biggest group of Moro rebels in Mindanao with whom the government has been talking peace with maintains it will not turn in its members implicated in the Mamasapano clash should criminal cases be filed against them.
Ghazali Jaafar, first vice chairman for political affairs and central committee member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) made the statement on Friday (April 17) — saying the group was holding its ground in reiterating that its combatants were “innocent” and justified in the January 25 encounter that left 44 police commandos dead.
Jaafar held that members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF), which is the MILF’s military arm, were just defending themselves against the armed intrusion of the elite police troopers.
The statement was in reaction to Secretary Leila de Lima’s pronouncement a day before (April 16) that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was readying the first batch of charges against 90 Moro rebels of the MILF and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in connection with the death of 35 blocking force troopers of the 55th Special Action Company (SAC) in the cornfields of Barangay Tukanalipao.
De Lima said the first tranche of cases did not include yet the death of 9 other members of the 84th Seaborne Company which penetrated the lair of international terrorist Zulkifli Bin Hir alias Marwan. Also, 18 MILF members and 5 civilians were killed.
She said this was because investigators were still looking for witnesses who can pinpoint suspects in these separate incidents.
De Lima declined to detail the charges to be filed but related that members of the National Prosecution Service (NPS) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) based their 224-page report on statement of a certain “Marathon” who helped in identifying the suspects’ identities as he was at the site when the bloody clash happened.
Aside from eyewitness accounts, she said, the findings of the Board of Inquiry (BOI) and the Senate helped in the investigation.
The NBI-NPS special investigating team was given until June to come up with its second report.
CNN Philippines’ Erwin Cabilbigan and Triciah Terada contributed to this report.
