Police recover 2 bodies, arms cache near Shariff Aguak

MANILA, Philippines – Two bodies in Maguindanao buried a few meters away from the provincial capital of Sharif Aguak were recovered by police, Justice Secretary Leila De Lima said Tuesday.

At a press conference, De Lima said they believed that the bodies were those of Murad Badjunaid, a relative of former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Governor Zacarias Candao, and Harold Abdullah, brother of Ruben Abdullah, a spokesman of Candao. They were reported missing since 2003.

De Lima, who was with the team that excavated the bodies, said the burial site was 15 minutes away from the provincial capital of Sharif Aguak. About 30 meters from the burial site, De Lima said they recovered 30 weapons particularly 10 M16 armalite rifles, M14 and improvised explosive devices.

“The bodies will be subjected to forensic validation. The remains will be turned over to the NBI Medico Legal at General Santos and transmitted to NBI main office for medico legal exam,” De Lima said.

At the same time, De Lima said she asked the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) to investigate the April 1 incident where police were supposed to have recovered a huge cache of firearms buried at a property of Sajid Ampatuan but were not able to do so because of the intervention of lawyers of the Ampatuans.

“We believe that the weapons we have recovered were part of a bigger site which we were supposed to look at last April 1. This is within the property of Sajid Ampatuan, we were able to get a search warrant. Digging was supposed to start but the Ampatuan lawyers were there and without clearance from me, the team handling the operation called it off…I asked the CIDG to investigate the matter,” she added.