Datu Andal Ampatuan, Jr., also known as Unsay, was found guilty and sentenced to reclusion perpetua or up to 40 years in jail for the murder of 58 people in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre.
Quezon City Regional Trial Court Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes announced the verdict on Thursday, more than 10 years after the mass killing.
Unsay was mayor of Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao province when he and members of his family's armed group killed 58 people – shooting them and hastily burying their corpses on a hilltop in Ampatuan town – on November 23, 2009.
The victims include family members and supporters of then Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu, who was going to run against Unsay for Maguindanao governor. The group was in a convoy of eight vehicles headed to the provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak to file Mangudadatu's certificate of candidacy when it was blocked by armed men. Thirty-two media workers who came to cover the event were also killed, along with six other civilians who were just passing by.
READ: Maguindanao Massacre: How the Ampatuans allegedly killed 58 people
The Maguindanao massacre has been tagged as the world's deadliest single attack on media workers, and the worst case of election-related violence in the Philippines.
The Ampatuan patriarch, Andal, Sr. was considered a main suspect but he died of liver cancer in 2015 while the case was being tried.
Arrest and trial
The massacre prompted then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to declare a state of emergency in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat provinces and in Cotabato City on November 24 to "prevent and suppress the occurrence of similar other incidents of lawless violence."Martial law was declared in parts of Maguindanao on December 4 and lifted on December 12 as members of the Ampatuan clan, Arroyo's political allies, were taken into custody.
Andal Jr. and Zaldy are the primary accused in the case and are in government custody. Datu Sajid Islam Ampatuan was allowed to post bail in 2015.
The trial, which began in January 2010, included 134 witnesses for the prosecution, with key witnesses telling the court "they heard the Ampatuans plan the killing as early as July 2009, and as late as November 19, 2009, or just four days before the massacre," according to a briefer by the Freedom for Media, Freedom for All coalition.
Prosecution witnesses also said they saw Datu Unsay (Andal Jr.) kill the victims and order his men to "hurry up" in burying the bodies, which were later found in a mass grave in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao.
The defense, meanwhile, presented witnesses from the Ampatuan municipal government who testified that Datu Unsay was in a meeting at the municipal hall during the time of the massacre. Datu Unsay also testified that he was not at the massacre site when it happened.
The defense also said that no forensic evidence was presented to directly link Datu Unsay to the killings.
Delays
The case suffered delays from the sheer number of people and records involved and from procedural requirements like bail hearings for 70 of the detained suspects."It was only on May 30, 2017, seven years after the trial began, that Judge [Jocelyn] Solis-Reyes denied Datu Unsay's petition for bail," FMFA said in its briefer, adding Judge Solis-Reyes also had to face nine motions for her to recuse herself from the trial.
"The numerous motions for reconsideration, the time given for the defendants to find new lawyers, as well as 'delaying tactics of the defense', tied up the case during the last three years," FMFA said.
The case was submitted for decision on August 22 and a verdict was expected in November, in time for the tenth year since the massacre. Judge Solis-Reyes the Supreme Court for 30 more days, however, citing the "voluminous records" in the case.
READ: Who is Jocelyn Solis-Reyes, the judge who took on the Maguindanao Massacre case?
After years of hearings, the judge had to go through 165 volumes of records on the trial, 65 volumes of stenographic notes, eight volumes of the prosecution's documentary evidence, and the testimony of 357 witnesses.
As the trial the Regional Trial Court comes to a close, the case could go on longer before the verdict becomes final and executory at the Supreme Court.
This is a developing story. Please refresh page for updates.
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This article first appeared on The Philippine Star & CNN Philippines.
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