MANILA, Philippines—Four senior police officers who could have prevented the massacre of 57 people in Maguidanao even tried to cover up the country’s worst election-related killings, a police official disclosed Monday.

Chief Supt. Felicisimo Khu, head of a police investigative team, said Chief Insp. Sukarno Dicay and Senior Insp. Ariel Diongon were at a checkpoint 2.5 kilometers away from the dirt road where the slaughter was carried out by some 100 gunmen on Nov. 23.

Dicay was the Maguindanao police deputy director while Diongon headed the Provincial Police Mobile Group, a special counterinsurgency unit.

Khu said another police officer, Insp. Saudi Mokamad, may have also been one of the gunmen.

Mokamad’s house was raided by a military and police team in Cotabato City on Monday on suspicion that the firearms used in the massacre were brought to his place.

The raid yielded an M-16 assault rifle, a rifle grenade and cache of ammunition.

Police suspects detained

Khu said a certain Inspector Mariga was also flown to Camp Crame on Monday after he was put under “restrictive custody” for his alleged participation in the killings.

“The material witnesses and suspects are now in Camp Crame. These are [police] personnel who were allegedly involved in the conduct of checkpoints where the abduction started,” he said in a phone interview.

Khu said a team from the Army’s 601st Infantry Brigade was deployed in the area after a convoy of the Mangudadatu clan, lawyers and journalists was reported missing on the way to Shariff Aguak to file nominations in the May local elections.

Khu said the soldiers, led by a certain Major Navarro and Captain Reyes, asked Dicay and Diongon if they had seen the convoy, but the police officials said they did not. He said the two also denied receiving information about a shooting incident.

He said a paramilitary unit assigned at a nearby checkpoint also denied seeing a group of vehicles pass by the road.

Militiaman led troops

A militiaman, however, “discreetly” told the soldiers that a convoy of about seven vehicles was seen in the area.

Khu said the troops could still hear the backhoe’s engine as they were approaching the hilly portion of the remote village.

Moments later, the soldiers were shocked to see 22 bullet-riddled bodies sprawled on a feeder road, Khu said.

“The soldiers proceeded to Sitio Masalay where they accosted two [militiamen] who were armed with an M-16 rifle and shotgun. The Army unit turned them over to the paramilitary detachment, which turned them over to the Ampatuan police station,” Khu said.

But the town police chief, Senior Police Officer 2 Badawi Bacal, released the militiamen to the vice mayor of Ampatuan, Khu continued.

“That’s why Bacal was sent to Camp Crame because it was a wrong procedure. Why did he release the two men who were accosted near the crime scene?” he said.

Bothered by conscience

Khu said it was only then that a police team led by Dicay and Diongon went to the area to check on the discovery of the cadavers.

Upon seeing Diongon, Khu said an appalled military officer confronted the police official and asked him: “Nakokonsensya ka ba? (Are you bothered by your conscience?)”

“But Diongon just turned his back and walked away,” he said, quoting the Army official.

Aside from the 128 spent shells recovered from the grave site, 21 bullet shells from an M-16 rifle were also retrieved from an elevated portion, fueling speculations that the victims were shot “like they were on a firing squad position.”

“It jives with the statement of the witnesses that some of the gunmen were positioned in high ground of the crime scene area,” he said.

Backhoe operators

Khu also said that the operator of the excavating machine used to bury the victims was now under police custody. He did not identify the man for security reasons.

He said that the man was an employee of the Maguindanao engineering office and was one of the three designated operators of the backhoe. However, he said it was still premature to link the man to the carnage.

“He claimed he was in a meeting in their office (at the capitol at the time of the massacre),” Khu said.

Police had earlier identified one Hanid Delyudin as the operator of the backhoe.

According to Khu, the backhoe operator disclosed that the equipment was first sent to the crime scene four days before the massacre. It was returned to the capitol, but was again taken to the area 30 minutes after the killings, he said.

“I have directed [our investigator] to get any valuable statement from him that will have relevance to the mass murders,” Khu said. “The man said there were two operators tasked to dig up the graves days before the massacre and after the killings.”