MANILA, Philippines?(UPDATE 4) Andal Ampatuan Jr., the main defendant in the Maguindanao massacre, wanted everyone in the convoy killed, including the media practitioners, a former house helper of the political clan said on Wednesday, the first day of the trial on the massacre of 57 people.

At the ambush site on November 23 last year, Ampatuan Jr. phoned his father and told them that their political enemy?s convoy was there.

According to Lakmudin Saliao (not Suliya as earlier reported), 33, who has been with the Ampatuans for 18 years, the conversation went this way:

?Andito na sila (They?re here),? said Ampatuan Jr.

?Andyan ba si Toto (Is Toto there)?? asked the older Ampatuan, referring to their political rival then Buluan mayor Ismael ?Toto? Mangudadatu.

?Wala, ama. Asawa at kapatid na babae lang (No, father. Just the wife and sisters),? said the younger Ampatuan.

?Alam mo na ang gagawin mo. Patayin mo na sila. Itira mo ang media (You know what to do. Kill them. Spare the media),? the father said.

?Hindi. Lubus-lubusin na natin. Makakapagsalita pa kundi natin uubusin (No. Let?s go all the way. They will be able to speak if we don?t finish all of them),? the son said.

Saliao climbed onto the stand after lower court judge Jocelyn Reyes rejected a motion by lawyers for main defendant Ampatuan Jr. to move back the start of the trial 10 days.

Saliao also told the court how, six days before the attack, the Ampatuan clan gathered to debate how to deal with the rival politician's electoral challenge.

"That's easy, father. We kill all of them when they come here," Saliao quoted Ampatuan Jr. as telling his father and namesake in the meeting, which the witness said gathered all clan leaders at the patriarch's home.

Saliao said Ampatuan Sr. then instructed his son Ampatuan Jr. how to execute the plan.

"Do not entrust the roadblock to others. You yourself should stop them at the highway, near the place where a backhoe is conducting some diggings," the witness quoted the patriarch as telling his son.

Ampatuan Sr. concluded the meeting after his other sons and cousins voiced their approval of the plan, said Saliao, who told the court he was standing in front of Ampatuan Jr. at the time.

Five other Ampatuans, including the patriarch Ampatuan Sr., are among the 196 people facing charges related to the massacre, although more than 100 of the alleged gunmen remain at large.

Ampatuan and more than 100 gunmen allegedly stopped a convoy belonging to a political rival in Maguindanao in November last year, killed 57 people, and pushed the bodies and the vehicles into mass graves the suspects had dug beforehand with a backhoe.

Manette Salaysay, a relative of one of the victims who attended the court session, hailed the start of the trial, which had been delayed for five months.

"It is difficult to fight these devils," she told AFP, referring to Ampatuan and 16 police officers also facing trial, accused in relation to the massacre.

"We want to see the light of justice," Salaysay added.

Ampatuan, wearing a yellow prison shirt and flanked by plainclothes police, sat impassively behind his lawyers as the witness was sworn in.

The trial, held at a special courtroom built inside a maximum-security police jail in Taguig, south of Manila, is being held amid allegations of witness intimidation and fears the case could drag on for years.

It was to start last week but the judge moved it back seven days to give the Ampatuan lawyers more time to comment on previous court rulings related to the case.

Rights groups and the victims' relatives have accused the Ampatuans of applying delaying tactics while ordering their men to terrorize witnesses.

Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia chief of the New York-based monitor Human Rights Watch, said five people with knowledge of alleged abuses by the Ampatuans had been killed since the massacre.

The five included a key massacre witness who could have placed Ampatuan at the scene, she said.

"Abuses in Maguindanao have not stopped with the arrest of six members of the Ampatuan family," Pearson said in a statement.

"Prompt investigation of ongoing crimes is essential to prevent further killing and to stop suspects from interfering with the trial."

At least 30 journalists were among those shot dead in the massacre in Maguindanao province in the single biggest attack on the working press in history, according to global press watchdogs.

Five other Ampatuans, including the patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr., are among the 196 people facing charges related to the massacre, although more than 100 of the alleged gunmen remain at large.

Ampatuan Jr., then a local mayor, allegedly led the massacre to stop the rival from running against him for the post of Maguindanao province governor in this year's national elections.

Ampatuan Jr., an ex-town mayor in his 40s and heir-apparent to one of the most powerful Muslim political clans in the south, faces life in prison if convicted of the November 2009 murders that shocked the world.