COMPLAINT filed by former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan, Sr. whose clan is linked with the November 23 massacre, against military officials will be resolved soon, a prosecutor said.
"The respondents (military officials) have already submitted their counter-affidavits. The complaint will be resolved soon," Prosecutor Victoriano M. Bello Jr. told Sun.Star Davao.
Ampatuan earlier filed complaints of illegal detention and arbitrary arrest against Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, commanding officer of the Eastern Mindanao Command; Lt. Col. Joel Paloma; Col. Leo Cresente Ferrer, and two unidentified men for not releasing him from the military camp.
In an affidavit corroborated by his lawyer Philip Pantojan, the Ampatuan patriarch said that in the evening of December 4, 2009 he was on his way to a Cotabato hospital with Pantojan and his medical staff due to recurring hypertensive attacks.
Ampatuan added that they were accosted by military men at their residential gate and informed that Martial Law has already been declared in Maguindanao.
The National Government declared on December 4, 2009 military take-over in Maguindanao following the worst mass killing of 57 individuals, including at least 30 journalists. The Ampatuans are alleged to be masterminding the massacre.
Ampatuan and his group were brought to the Davao Doctors Hospital instead and told that the guards outside his room will have to check on visitors.
Ampatuan Sr. claimed he was only informed of his arrest without a proof of warrant.
He added that soldiers stormed his hospital room and even used a teargas to forcibly bring him out and detain him at a military hospital in Camp Panacan.
He demanded that he be charged within 72 hours but no such rebellion charges were filed against him.
Letters of request for the military to release him remained unanswered, the former governor said. (RMH/Sunnex)