Another "Maguindanao massacre" suspect arrested
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 15:45 PM Fri Jan 10, 2020
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By:
John M. Unson
Massacre suspect Gambayan Kasim is now detained. (Photo from PRO-BAR)
MAGUINDANAO --- The police arrested Thursday another suspect in the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre and shot his companion dead for trying to interfere in the operation.
Gambayan Kasim, alias Lori Arip, is now in the custody of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.
He voluntarily yielded when PRO-BAR agents barged into his house in Barangay Timbangan in Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao, but a companion named Edsrail Guiomla pulled out a .45 caliber pistol and opened fire, provoking a brief gunfight that resulted in his death.
The team that frisked and cuffed Kasim found in his trouser pocket a fragmentation grenade, to be used as evidence in filing of a separate criminal case against him.
Brig. Gen. Marni Marcos, director of PRO-BAR, said Friday Kasim shall be turned over to the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 that issued the warrant for his arrest.
PRO-BAR operatives, backed by personnel of the Maguindanao provincial police, arrested early this week in nearby Datu Saudi Ampatuan town massacre suspect Faisal Dimaukom.
Minus Kasim and Dimaukom, there are still 78 suspects in the Maguindanao massacre still at large.
The atrocity, which left 58 people dead, 32 of them members of central Mindanao’s media community, is touted as the country’s worst election-related violence ever.