Court junks request to turn 4 Maguindanao massacre suspects into state witnesses

The Quezon City court handling the Maguindanao massacre case has thumbed down the prosecution’s request for four suspects to be turned into state witnesses due to lack of merit. In an omnibus motion, QC Regional Trial Court Branch 221 Presiding Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes ruled that the testimonies of the four — Inspectors Rex Ariel Diongon, Michael Macaraeg, PO1 Rainer Ebus and Mohammad Sangki — were merely corroborative in nature. “Such being the case, they do not qualify as state witnesses," said Judge Solis-Reyes in her eight-page motion. In her order, Judge Solis-Reyes explained that although the court agrees that Diongon, Ebus and Mohammad Sangki do not appear to be the most guilty among the close to 200 people implicated in the grisly crime, and that Diongon and Ebus have not been convicted of any offense involving moral turpitude, these do not warrant their removal from the charge sheet. “[T]he court ruled that the existence of the foregoing conditions will not suffice to discharge the said accused as state witnesses," Judge Solis-Reyes said. She explained that “discharge of an accused should be availed of only when there is absolute necessity for the testimony of said accused whose discharge is requested as when he alone has knowledge of the crime and not when his testimony would simply corroborate or otherwise stengthen the evidence in the hands of the prosecution." Prime accused Andal Ampatuan Sr. and his son Andal Jr. have opposed the prosecution’s request for the four to be turned into state witnesses, saying their testimonies would only corroborate those given by other prosecution witnesses who claimed to have personally witnessed the massacre on Nov. 23, 2009 in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao. A total of 57 people, including 32 journalists, were killed in the massacre, considered as the worst case of election-related violence in the country. The victims were on their way to Shariff Aguak to file the candidacy papers of then gubernatorial aspirant and now Maguindanao governor Esmael “Toto" Mangudadatu. The journalists were covering the event. — KBK, GMA News