COTABATO CITY, Philippines—The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will not prevent its members from seeking legal assistance on their own once the Department of Justice files murder charges against them in connection with the deaths of 44 police commandos during the Mamasapano fighting in January.
Last week, President Benigno Aquino III said 90 members of the MILF, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and private armed groups would be charged in the deaths of 44 members of the police Special Action Force (SAF) during a mission to arrest Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan.
READ: Raps OKd vs 90 MILF, BIFF, others in slay of 35 SAF in Mamasapano
Aside from the 44 SAF members, at least 17 rebels and five civilians were killed in the daylong fighting in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, in a statement Sunday, said the group’s central committee would not stop their members from defending themselves if they faced prosecution.
“We do not ask them not to do something that would help them get out of that whole problem,” Iqbal said.
“It can include legal, maybe access to lawyers. On the individual decision-making, they can access lawyers on their own personal capacity. We will not stop them,” he said.
Iqbal explained the MILF as an organization was not a party to the case.
“What the MILF can do is invoke the provisions of existing mechanisms of the peace process. That is a binding agreement, particularly the provision on ceasefire, as far as the government and MILF are concerned,” he said.
Iqbal said the group would rather leave it to the public to decide on the Mamasapano incident, although it was standing by the findings of the MILF’s own investigation.
“There are five to six versions of the incident. So let the people decide which one is the truth or leading to the truth,” he said.
“On the findings of the MILF investigating team, that’s official. We hold that as the official version, but we have buried this issue already. We do not want to revive it because those who died both on the side of the government and the MILF are already resting in their graves,” he said.
The MILF earlier said its members who were involved in the encounter would be punished based on their violations of the MILF’s BIAF code of conduct and in accordance with Sharia Law.
RELATED STORY
Aquino puts an end to ‘baseless’ Mamasapano speculation