Home of Mangudadatu lawyer burglarized; P5M in cash, valuables lost

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—Burglars broke into the apartment unit rented by the lawyer of Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu and carted away some P5 million worth of cash and valuables, police said Thursday.

Investigators, the police said, had found human hand and foot prints on the back wall, which at least one suspect possibly scaled to enter the rear window of the apartment in San Isidro Village in Barangay Rosary Heights No. 10 here.

Lawyer Abubakar Katambak, legal counsel for Mangudadatu, said the intruders also took short and long firearms, including ammunition belonging to his Army escorts.

Katambak, who is also an Army captain, said there was no one home when the break-in occurred as he took his family to a beach in General Santos City on Wednesday, after a brief travel abroad.

He showed probers two of the three bedrooms where personal belongings, including bags that had contained cash and jewels, were scattered.

One of the burglars, as if to taunt the lawyer, wrote, “Sukran D-2” (Thank you, datu) using lipstick on the wall of one of the ransacked rooms which, according to investigators, indicated the writer “personally knows his victim.”

Katambak said he and his family have been staying at the apartment for the past six months.

His legal files, including those of the Maguindanao massacre cases, were left untouched, he said.

Katambak said police advised him and his family to temporarily vacate the place for security reasons.

Senior Superintendent Danny Reyes, city police chief, said the thieves may have struck early dawn when the security guard detailed at the apartments’ compound was off-duty, from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. the next day.

Anwar Lucas, Rosary Heights 10 chair, said that lately, there has been a spate of burglaries in their village.