ShareThisCOTABATO CITY – A former vice mayor in Maguindanao province, who was tagged as among the suspects in last year’s Ampatuan massacre, voluntarily surrendered sunday morning to government authorities in Sultan Kudarat province.
Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman Senior Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr. identified the surrenderee as Sukarno Badal, alias Uka, former vice mayor of Sultan sa Barongis town also in Maguindanao.
Cruz said Badal gave himself up to elements of the Army 33rd Infantry Battalion (IB) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Barangay Sigayan, Lambayong town at around 8 a.m.
Cruz said Badal was the subject of arrest warrant issued by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes for his alleged involvement in the Nov. 23, 2009 gruesome massacre of 57 civilians, including more than 30 media practitioners, in the outskirts of Ampatuan town.
Badal also surrendered a caliber .30 sniper rifle, two M16 Armalite rifles and a .30 caliber machinegun.
Cruz said that government authorities have already accounted 79 of the 196 accused in the massacre, led by former Datu Unsay town Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr.
Tracker teams from the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) were dispatched to hunt down 116 other accussed.
Aside from Ampatuan Jr., who was tagged as the principal suspect for allegedly leading about 100 armed men in perpetrating the cold blooded killing, other members of the powerful Ampatuan clan are now detained after being implicated in the gruesome killing.