A junior officer and three senior enlisted personnel from the Army elite forces were placed under “technical arrest” last week while under investigation for allegedly torturing a suspected Abu Sayyaf bandit involved in the infamous 2001 Lamitan siege.
The four members of the Army Special Operations Task Force (SOTF) were disarmed, relieved from their duties and restricted to their station in Basilan, said Colonel Domingo Tutaan Jr., who heads the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Human Rights Office.
Tutaan said AFP Chief of Staff General Eduardo Oban Jr. learned of the torture report on July 28 and immediately ordered the Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) and the Army’s 1st Infantry Division to conduct an inquiry.
Facing investigation are Captain Sherwin Guidangen, Staff Sergeant Elmer Magdaraog, Sergeant Edgardo Santos and Sergeant George Awing.
Tutaan stressed that the military leadership was serious in its “zero tolerance” for human rights abuses. “We assure the public that the AFP is not tolerating any act of human rights violation or torture by our personnel regardless of rank, designation and assignment,” he said in a news conference on Monday.
Arrest warrant
The Abu Sayyaf suspect was nabbed by soldiers in his house in Barangay (village) Libug in Sumisip, Basilan, on July 23. He was the subject of a warrant for his alleged involvement in the mass kidnapping during the 2001 Lamitan siege.
Tutaan identified the suspect as Abdul Khan Ajid Balanting, but Colonel Alexander Macario, Task Force Basilan commander, named him as Kanneh Malikilivo.
A sister, Haniba Musaddam, said his brother is named Abdul Khan Ajid and not Kanneh Malikilivo. She said the family discovered his ordeal when a court granted their petition for habeas corpus.
When he was turned over to a hospital in Isabela City under the custody of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) on July 28, he had burns in the head, face, belly and private parts.
“He has suffered so much,” Musaddam said.
Tutaan said Oban had also instructed Wesmincom and the 1st ID to cooperate with the Philippine National Police provincial office in Basilan and the Commission on Human Rights regional office, and “to ensure the safety of the victim” in a hospital in Basilan.
He added that the torture case and the Sulu clash on July 28 were not related.