Brains behind Adiong ambush try slain

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

COTABATO CITY—A month after the Bangsamoro police chief ordered the arrest of suspects in the failed ambush of Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr., the suspected mastermind behind the Feb. 17 attack was killed in a police operation on Wednesday.

Col. Robert Daculan, provincial police director, said Oscar Tacmar Capal Gandawali, leader of the Gandawali private armed group, resisted arrest and was killed after engaging police officers in a brief firefight at 3 p.m. in Maguing town.

Wounded during clash were Staff Sgt. Michael Angelo Virecio of the 5th Infantry Battalion and Gamon Manonggiring, barangay chair of Pilimoknan, where the operation was conducted.

Daculan said police, backed by soldiers and members of the Police Special Action Force, were on their way to serve eight warrants of arrest for murder and frustrated murder against Gandawali when the latter opened fire, hitting Virecio in the process.

Gandawali’s companions escaped during the firefight.

Daculan tagged Gandawali as the mastermind of the ambush in Maguing town that claimed the lives of Adiong’s three police escorts and driver. The governor was wounded in the attack and has since recovered.

Daculan said Gandawali also masterminded the ambush slaying of five agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Kapai, Lanao del Sur, in October 2018.

The Gandawali crime gang was also involved in gun-for-hire operation, gunrunning, robbery and drug trade in Lanao del Sur, police said.

—EDWIN O. FERNANDEZ

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