Cop tagged in Ampatuan massacre nabbed in Sarangani

GEN. SANTOS CITY -A policeman implicated in the infamous Ampatuan massacre in 2009 was arrested on Tuesday at a remote village in Maitum town in Sarangani Province after nearly five years in hiding.Sr. Insp. Marvin Carisma, Maitum municipal police station chief, said Wednesday Police Officer 1 Anwar Dimaudtang Masukat was nabbed by a joint police team in a house in Sitio Tineb, Barangay Mindopok at around 4 a.m. Tuesday.He said the suspect was reportedly involved in the November 23, 2009 massacre of 58 persons, including 32 media workers, in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town.The police official said Masukat, who did not resist arrest, was arrested based on a warrant of arrest issued by Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn A Solis-Reyes.The arresting team was composed of elements from the Maitum municipal police station and Regional Police Public Safety Battalion’s 3rd Maneuver Company and the Regional Intelligence Unit (RIU).The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) had placed a P250,000 reward for the arrest of Masukat, who was listed as a resident of Barangay Mamasapano of Mamasapano town in Maguindanao.Carisma said the RIU took custody of the suspect following his arrest and immediately processed his transfer to Metro Manila. He was transferred on the same day to Manila where he will be detained,” he told reporters.The Department of Justice had filed 58 counts of murder against former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. and his sons Andal Jr., former mayor of Datu Unsay Zaldy, former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and several other clan members and at least 180 CVO members or militiamen in connection with the massacre.A group of armed men allegedly led by Ampatuan Jr. held and later killed members of the family of then Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, their lawyers and 32 media workers who were on their way to file Mangudadatu’s certificate of candidacy for Maguindanao governor at the Commission on Elections provincial office in Shariff Aguak town.The media workers were there to cover the event.Masukat, who reportedly stayed these past years with his relatives in Maitum, was tagged as among the policemen who flagged down the convoy along the national highway in Datu Unsay town prior to the massacre.(PNA)