Marwan. PHOTO FROM FBI.GOV
Put up or shut up.
That was the challenge of the chief of the Philippine National Police to a Mindanao party-list group which has claimed that it wasn’t the Special Action Force (SAF) that took down international terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias “Marwan.”
PNP Director General Ricardo Marquez issued the dare following claims by the Anti-War Anti-Terror (Awat) Mindanao party-list that it was Marwan’s own aide—Datukan Singgagao—who shot and killed Marwan in a police operation in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, on Jan. 25, 2015.
Forty-four SAF men died in the operation.
“As far as we are concerned, we have very, very strong evidence that it was our own people, the SAF, who neutralized Marwan. Whoever’s claiming otherwise, they are peddling lies,” Marquez told the media on Monday.
“They are just intrigue-mongering. A lot of stories have circulated in the past but they’re just that—stories, with no evidence. So put up evidence, otherwise shut up,” Marquez said.
The PNP Board of Inquiry quoted SAF survivor Supt. Raymund Train, team leader of the 84th Seaborne company which raided Marwan’s hut, as saying that it was their team that fatally shot Marwan in the chest during a 15-minute gunfight.
Train said Senior Insp. Gednat Tabdi, one of those killed in the ensuing gunfight with Moro rebels, had cut off Marwan’s index finger for DNA analysis and took photos of Marwan’s body in the hut.
In a press conference on Friday, the Awat party-list claimed it was Singgagao who had shot Marwan and cut off his index finger so he could get a P50-million reward.
Awat said this was the “alternative” version of the Mamasapano operation that President Aquino had referred to in a forum with the Inquirer in September. Mr. Aquino later clarified that the “alternative” version he had spoken about had no basis.
Alternative truth denied
Marquez, on his part, insisted: “We have proven not only through statements but through still pictures that our people were there on the ground in Marwan’s hut.”
Former SAF head and retired police Director Getulio Napeñas, sacked from his post after the Mamasapano operation, did not respond to texts or calls from the Inquirer seeking his comment on Awat’s claim.
Interviewed by the Inquirer in September after supposed sources from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front floated the same story, Napeñas had dismissed the claim as having “no basis or evidence.”
“These are all meant to discredit the SAF… there’s no basis or evidence to say it was Marwan’s aide who killed him,” Napeñas said then.
Napeñas also said he welcomed a reinvestigation into the Mamasapano clash “because we have only one truth.” He challenged those claiming to have the “alternative truth” to prove their claim. With a report from Inquirer Research