Most of the suspects are former government-armed militiamen and police loyal to a powerful clan blamed for the slayings.
Manila court orders arrest of 196 massacre suspects
Andal Ampatuan Jr. (C), a local mayor of Maguindanao province, is escorted by National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents through a waiting vehicle outside the NBI headquarters in Manila February 3, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco
The court also issued commitment orders which directed police to continue detaining seven others, including clan patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr. and several of his sons, who were arrested without formal warrants on suspicion of plotting the Nov. 23 massacre in southern Maguindanao province, state prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera said.
Among those covered by the arrest warrants are 47 police officers who were placed in custody after being suspended by the national police for alleged involvement in the killings, said Francisco Don Montenegro, chief of the national police investigation and detection group.
The 142 others still at large include 99 former militiamen loyal to the clan, 16 police officers and four soldiers, Montenegro said.
Days after the massacre, police arrested Andal Ampatuan Jr. and filed multiple murder charges against him. He was the only person formally charged until prosecutors filed an indictment against his father and 195 others in February. However, arrest warrants were not issued at that time because prosecutors needed time to complete the gathering of evidence and witnesses against them.
The indictment said the clan patriarch and the others were part of a conspiracy to ambush and kill members of the rival Mangudadatu family and their supporters, who were gunned down on a hilltop in Maguindanao. The attack apparently was aimed at preventing Esmael Mangudadatu from challenging the Ampatuans' control of the province in a gubernatorial election in May.
Among those killed were 30 journalists and their staff who were covering the filing of Mangudadatu's candidacy papers.
The massacre was unprecedented even in a country known for election violence and political killings that have claimed hundreds of lives in the last 10 years. Only the war crime trials of World War II Japanese commanders in the Philippines involved a higher numbers of victims, said former Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera.
The 69-year-old clan patriarch, a political ally of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has denied any involvement and said the charges were fabricated.
The Ampatuans are also facing separate charges of rebellion for allegedly mobilizing armed resistance against the government after the massacre.
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