CIDG off to Marawi to probe executions

By HUSSEIN MACATORO
Editor and NITZ ARANCON, Correspondent

THE Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) started an investigation into Monday’s alleged execution of a group of young men linked to the gangape and grisly murder of a teenager in Marawi City on Friday, police said yesterday.

Chief Supt. Noel Armilla, deputy regional director for administration of the police in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm), said a team of officers from Cagayan de Oro was tasked to go to Marawi to investigate, and possibly, identify the executioners.

Armilla said the Armm police asked the CIDG to take the lead in the investigation. CIDG officers in northern Mindanao led by regional director Senior Supt. Alexander Tagum went in full force to Marawi yesterday afternoon. The CIDG in Lanao del Sur under Chief Insp. Mario Sagcal provided them a back-up force. Supt. Agustin Tello, provincial police director, earlier identified the suspects as Jabbar Macacua, Salman Sambitory, Elias Pimping, and Jalil Sani.

The young men were reportedly handed over to the police for detention last weekend but authorities were forced to release them amid calls for “swift justice” based on the shariah law.

There had been calls to kill the suspects by firing squad and even by burning. But Marawi Mayor Fahad Salic earlier said he tried to calm residents down, reminded them that executions cannot be carried out under Philippine laws, and that a case should be filed against the suspects.

Police sources told the Gold Star Daily that authorities in Marawi could no longer hold the suspects any longer because the family of the victim did not want to press charges.

“What happened was some sort of a ‘rido,’” a police official told this paper on condition of anonymity. He said there was no definite word on exactly how the suspects were executed.

“(The suspects’) families cannot be reached but they might have respected traditional decisions on the rapists’ fate,” he said. The suspects were accused of being drug addicts, responsible for a series of crimes in the predominantly Muslim city. One photo posted on the Facebook account of one Ahmed showed the four suspects in jail, bloodied. The post was “liked” by 215 people, and shared on Facebook 384 times as of 4:30 pm yesterday.

The Aug. 17 post reads: “Matapos halayin sinunog ang batang babae at ang kanilang tirahan ng walang takot sa Allah swt. Ngayon ang Batas ng Islam ang huhusig sa inyo ng hindi kayo pamarisan ng iba. Alhamdulillah sila ay pupugutan ng ulo ngaun… Yan ang totoong batas alang kinikilingan alang pinoprotektahan at alang kinakatakutan.”

Many of those who reacted to the post wrote comments that were in favor of execution. One comment went this way: “… ito ay naganap sa Marawi city kung saan nararapat na ipataw ang kamatayan sapagkat ito ay Islamic state of the Philippines.” Another post showed the photographs of the suspects, and their alleged victim bathed in her own blood on a bed with a knife thrust into her neck.