COTABATO CITY, Philippines—The mayor of a Maguindanao town has been missing for nearly three months now and is believed to have gone into hiding after being linked to the so-called “chainsaw massacre,” another in a chain of killings attributed to the once powerful Ampatuan clan that ruled the province for more than two decades.
Haroun Al-Rashid Lucman, Interior secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said the long absence from office of Mayor Samer Uy of Datu Piang has prompted him to name an officer-in-charge to prevent a leadership vacuum. He said Vice Mayor Genuine Kamaong is now the acting chief executive of Datu Piang.
Lucman said Uy, a brother-in-law of former Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., was being sought for his alleged participation in the massacre—with the use of chainsaws—of 18 people the Ampatuans suspected of involvement in the 2003 assassination of Datu Piang Mayor Saudi Ampatuan Sr.
Saudi Ampatuan Sr. was a son of Andal Ampatuan Sr, who, along with two sons and other relatives, is being tried on multiple murder charges for the massacre of 57 people, including 31 journalists and media workers, in Maguindanao on Nov. 23, 2009.
Early this year, investigators from the Department of Justice and the National Bureau of Investigation unearthed several skeletal remains on a piece of land near Shariff Aguak, the Maguindanao provincial capital, and found witnesses who linked Uy and other Ampatuan clan members to the “chainsaw massacre.”
Lucman said Uy’s whereabouts were unknown. He has been missing since January.
Meanwhile, an Army commander said that another Ampatuan clan member who was wounded in a bomb explosion in Mamasapano town on Sunday was on his way to surrender when the blast took place near a river.
Ipeh Ampatuan, a suspect in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, was being escorted by Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels on his way to surrender, according to Col. Mayoralgo dela Cruz, commander of the Army’s First Mechanized Infantry Brigade.
Dela Cruz said the MILF rebels, several of whom were also wounded, were followers of a relative of the fugitive.
It was not clear who tried to kill the fugitive, Dela Cruz said. With a report from Charlie Señase, Inquirer Mindanao
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