Maute gangsters meted 40 years

A Taguig court has sentenced 10 members of the Maute terrorist group of up to 40 years imprisonment for the kidnapping and beheading of sawmill workers in 2016 in Butig, Lanao del Sur.

According to a report from the government-run Philippine News Agency, the Taguig Regional Trial Court Branch 266 found that Russell Salic, a doctor accused of taking part in a foiled terror plot on Times Square in New York, was among the 10 individuals sentenced to serve 20 to 40 years in prison.

Ominta Romato Maute (alias Farhana), Mashuri Abdul, Sohayle Mohammad Cader, Jomar Labay, TJ Tagadaya Macabalang, Wendell Apostol Facturan, Musali Mustapha, Zack Villanueva Lopez and Ausa Abdullah Mamasapano were also found guilty of kidnapping the six workers and beheading two of them.

In September 2020, Macabalang, Facturan, Mustapha, Lopez and Mamasapano were among the 11 men convicted for the 2016 bombing of a night market in Davao City that killed 15 people and left 69 others wounded.

Judge Marivic Vitor said in a 32-page decision that the members of the Maute group were found “guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the complex crime of multiple murder and multiple attempted murder.”

The convicted members, however, were all acquitted of terrorism under Republic Act No. 9372, or the Human Security Act of 2007.