Mayor in Ampatuan clan bailiwick town, 11 others face terrorism raps

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A court in Iligan City had issued a warrant for the arrest of a mayor and 11 others for their alleged involvement in the ambush in January of the mayor of Shariff Aguak in Maguindanao del Sur that injured four individuals and caused panic among residents in the municipality.

Copies of the warrant of arrest from the Regional Trial Court Branch 1 in Iligan City for Mayor Datu Andal Ampatuan V of Datu Unsay, Maguindanao del Sur, and his alleged accomplices, Ababang Salik, Edad Pendatun, Aboher Guimbangan, Toraipie Lusod, Gapor Magaluyan, Mohammad Shamron Uday Sapalon, Samsudin Mokamad, Saudi Guiapal, Johari Guiapal, Soy Kali and Datuben Gayon, were forwarded on Friday, September 25, to reporters by officials of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

They were charged with plotting the ambush in January of the convoy of Shariff Aguak Mayor Akmad Ampatuan Sr. in one of the barangays under his jurisdiction, where attackers were recorded in security cameras in establishments around targeting his black bullet-proof sports utility vehicle with a B40 anti-tank rocket.

The mayor of Datu Unsay is most known in Maguindanao del Sur by his nickname, Xyril.

The RTC Branch 1 in Iligan City in Region 10, is one of several courts in Mindanao exclusively litigating violations of state anti-terror law. 

Four of the Akmad’s companions sustained contusions and superficial wounds in the rocket blast, which also damaged their vehicle.

Xyril, now a second term mayor of Datu Unsay, whose town center is only about a kilometer away from Shariff Aguak, and his co-accused were separately charged with violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, also known as the Republic Act 11479, and multiple frustrated murder for their having allegedly plotted the attempt to kill Akmad in an ambush in January that left his companions injured slightly.

The 26-year-old Xyril is son of Datu Andal Ampatuan, Jr., who was convicted for his direct involvement in the politically-motivated murder on November 23, 2009 of 58 individuals, more than 20 of them journalists, in Ampatuan town in the then still undivided Maguindanao province. The carnage, which became most known as the “Maguindanao massacre,” shook the nation to its core and caught worldwide attention.

Akmad, the incumbent mayor of Shariff Aguak, who is so closely related by blood to the Ampatuans in Datu Unsay and their relatives in Mamasapano and Shariff Saydona Mustapha and in Datu Hoffer towns in Maguindanao del Sur, are locked in intense political differences.

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