Massacre suspect in jail press conference
Source: Agencies |
April 21, 2010, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE principal suspect in the Philippines' worst political massacre yesterday professed his innocence and endorsed a presidential candidate in a press conference held in the capital's maximum-security jail.
"I know very well that I am not the perpetrator because I was in my town hall then," Andal Ampatuan Jr, former mayor of a town in southern Maguindanao province, told journalists.
Ampatuan endorsed Benigno Aquino Jr, the opposition candidate who is leading in the polls ahead of the May 10 presidential elections.
But Aquino shrugged off the endorsement, saying he did not ask for it. His followers suspect it may have been a plot by the rivals of Aquino, who is leading in popularity surveys, to sully his name by linking it to a crime suspect.
The news conference sparked condemnation and fueled accusations that the current government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is favoring the powerful Ampatuan clan, which is suspected of plotting and carrying out the November 23 massacre of 57 people.
"We condemn this in the strongest terms, this is so callous," said Harry Roque, lawyer of the slain journalists. "This is another indication that we cannot get justice under this administration."
The massacre was unprecedented in a country known for election violence.
Among the victims were more than 30 journalists and their staff. The killings elevated the Philippines to the top of a list of the world's most dangerous places for reporters.
At the conference, Ampatuan thanked Justice Secretary Alberto Agra for his decision to clear a brother and a brother-in-law of murder charges and repeated his family's claim that Muslim separatist guerrillas in their Maguindanao stronghold, where the massacre took place, carried out the killings.
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