COTABATO CITY – The recent arrest here of a Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) field leader for his alleged role in the bloody 2015 “Mamasapano clash” has drawn intervention from the Bangsamoro Human Rights Commission (BHRC), calling for proper dispensation under the MILF-government peace process.
Lawyer Abdulnasser A. Badrudin, BHRC chairperson, issued a corresponding statement on February 28, two days after operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) handcuffed Dumamba “Abuhalil” Sabpa to his bed while being confined at the Cotabato Regional Medical Center here.
The CIDG team served the arrest warrant on Sabpa that was issued by Judge Alandrex Betoya of the Regional Trial Court-Branch 15 here for a pending “direct assault with murder” case stemming from his group’s involvement in the Jan. 25, 2015 bloody clash in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
The infamous clash left 44 elements of the Philippine National Police (PNP)-Special Action Froce (SAF), 15 MILF resident-fighters in Barangay Tukanalipao, and five civilian villagers dead.
The SAF operation, which a police board of inquiry found to have been uncoordinated with police and military entities in Maguindanao as well as the government-MILF peace process mechanisms, was meant to neutralize Indonesian bomb-maker Zulkifli ‘Marwan” Binhur and his Filipino student Basit Usman at barangay Tukanalipao.
A few days after clash, Sabpa, an MILF commander operating in Mamasapano town and nearby areas, surfaced and recounted in a TV interview how he and his men slugged it out with the SAF commandos.
“We defended our territory (recognized under the MILF-government peace process) from the attack. We did not know who were attacking because it happened before dawn. We only learned later that they were police elements of SAF,” Sabpa said in Pilipino.
Public outrage over the death of the 44 SAF troops prompted the 16th Congress to shelve the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) bill that the government of former president Benigno Aquino III had contemplated to enact in March 2015.
President Duterte revived the peace process with the MILF in a series of talks leading to the passage in July 2018 of Republic Act 11054, known as Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). The new law established the Bangsamoro region in replacement of the 29-year old Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
In his Feb. 28 statement, BHRC Chairman Badrudin urged the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), the governing body of Bangsamoro autonomous government and the GPH-MILF peace accords implementing panels intervene in the arrest of Sabpa and “ensure that (his) rights” under existing peace mechanisms will be preserved.
Badrudin said Sabpa should be dealt with according to existing GPH-MILF peace process mechanisms, particularly the Normalization Annex on Confidence Building Measure that provides for possible grant of amnesty or pardon.
Other Moro legal luminaries corroborated the BHRC call, saying that some top MILF leaders like Chairman Murad Ebrahim who are now ruling executives of the new autonomous government had been pardoned of political crimes involving loss of lives as a positive consequence of the Mindanao normalization process.
Earlier reports said the CIDG had allowed SBPA to recuperate fully in hospital before taking him on custody to face the “direct assault with murder case” in court.
Lawyer Abdulnasser A. Badrudin, BHRC chairperson, issued a corresponding statement on February 28, two days after operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) handcuffed Dumamba “Abuhalil” Sabpa to his bed while being confined at the Cotabato Regional Medical Center here.
The CIDG team served the arrest warrant on Sabpa that was issued by Judge Alandrex Betoya of the Regional Trial Court-Branch 15 here for a pending “direct assault with murder” case stemming from his group’s involvement in the Jan. 25, 2015 bloody clash in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
The infamous clash left 44 elements of the Philippine National Police (PNP)-Special Action Froce (SAF), 15 MILF resident-fighters in Barangay Tukanalipao, and five civilian villagers dead.
The SAF operation, which a police board of inquiry found to have been uncoordinated with police and military entities in Maguindanao as well as the government-MILF peace process mechanisms, was meant to neutralize Indonesian bomb-maker Zulkifli ‘Marwan” Binhur and his Filipino student Basit Usman at barangay Tukanalipao.
A few days after clash, Sabpa, an MILF commander operating in Mamasapano town and nearby areas, surfaced and recounted in a TV interview how he and his men slugged it out with the SAF commandos.
“We defended our territory (recognized under the MILF-government peace process) from the attack. We did not know who were attacking because it happened before dawn. We only learned later that they were police elements of SAF,” Sabpa said in Pilipino.
Public outrage over the death of the 44 SAF troops prompted the 16th Congress to shelve the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) bill that the government of former president Benigno Aquino III had contemplated to enact in March 2015.
President Duterte revived the peace process with the MILF in a series of talks leading to the passage in July 2018 of Republic Act 11054, known as Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). The new law established the Bangsamoro region in replacement of the 29-year old Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
In his Feb. 28 statement, BHRC Chairman Badrudin urged the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), the governing body of Bangsamoro autonomous government and the GPH-MILF peace accords implementing panels intervene in the arrest of Sabpa and “ensure that (his) rights” under existing peace mechanisms will be preserved.
Badrudin said Sabpa should be dealt with according to existing GPH-MILF peace process mechanisms, particularly the Normalization Annex on Confidence Building Measure that provides for possible grant of amnesty or pardon.
Other Moro legal luminaries corroborated the BHRC call, saying that some top MILF leaders like Chairman Murad Ebrahim who are now ruling executives of the new autonomous government had been pardoned of political crimes involving loss of lives as a positive consequence of the Mindanao normalization process.
Earlier reports said the CIDG had allowed SBPA to recuperate fully in hospital before taking him on custody to face the “direct assault with murder case” in court.
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