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Philippine massacre victims 'begged for mercy'
Agence France Presse - October 6, 2010
Manila – A witness at the trial of the Philippines' worst political massacre told the court on Wednesday that the victims begged for mercy as they were beaten before being taken away to be shot.
Farmer Nuruddin Mauyag told the court he was standing nearby when defendant Andal Ampatuan Jnr and his men blocked the victims' convoy and made them lie on the ground while their mobile phones were taken away.
"They were hit with the butt of firearms, the armed men punched them, kicked them, punched them on the back of the head, slapped them," Mauyag, 35, who lives near the site of the massacre in the southern province of Maguindanao, testified.
"They (victims) were crying and some women said 'why are you doing this to us, we are media,'" he said.
Ampatuan, a member of a Muslim political clan that had ruled Maguindanao for a decade, is accused of planning and taking part in the November 23, 2009 massacre of 57 people.
The clan is accused of abducting the victims, including relatives of a political rival and 30 journalists, and murdering them to stop a challenge to their rule over the province in the May 2010 elections.
Ampatuan's father and namesake, three brothers and an uncle, as well as police officers and the clan's bodyguards are among 196 people accused in the crime. At least 120 of the suspects remain at large, according to human rights monitors.
Mauyag said Ampatuan grabbed a tall Muslim woman at the checkpoint, later identified by prosecutors as Genalyn Mangudadatu, wife of his rival for the Maguindanao provincial governor's post, Esmael Mangudadatu.
When she protested Ampatuan fired on the ground between her legs, the witness said. "You are hard headed, I will shoot you now, I will kill you," the witness quoted Ampatuan as saying.
The witness, who is also a Mulsim and a father of six, then broke down while recounting the victims' ordeal as he and two neighbours watched helplessly.
Mauyag drew a map of the highway where the convoy was blocked and sketched the site of the massacre on a nearby grassy hill, about a kilometre away from his farm.
Shortly after the gunmen had herded the victims into vehicles that sped away, Mauyag said he heard gunshots in the distance. "They are already shooting up there," Mauyag quoted one of his neighbours as telling him as he rushed home.
Aside from Andal Jnr, Mauyag said Maguindanao's police chief at the time, Sukarno Dicay, and Andal Jnr's uncle, Kanor Ampatuan, helped round up the victims.
Mauyag later stood up and pointed to Dicay, who was seated in the gallery among fellow defendants, all wearing yellow prison uniforms.
The witness stood by his account when Ampatuan's lawyer tried to challenge his credibility.
Mangudadatu, who was elected governor of Maguindanao after the massacre, later told reporters at the gallery that while witnesses have given very strong testimonies he was unhappy with the pace of the trial.
"I am calling on President Benigno Aquino to closely pay attention to this case and have the presiding judge handle just this case like a special court," Mangudadatu said.
Mauyag is the second prosecution witness to testify. Last week, he told the court that he saw the gunmen trucked to the area days before the massacre.
The first witness, a former servant of the Ampatuan family, told the court last week that he witnessed the Ampatuan defendants plot to kill Esmael Mangudadatu during a meeting on November 17, 2009.
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