Senator says it’s difficult to appeal massacre case

PROSECUTORS might have a hard time appealing the dismissal of the 58th murder case against two members of a powerful clan in Maguindanao province a decade ago, a senator said on Friday.

“From a legal standpoint, it is difficult to make a case on the 58th victim, if the intention is to re-open the trial,” Senator Franklin M. Drilon Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon told reporters in a group message.

The 58th murder case involved photojournalist Reynaldo Momay, whose body was never found. His denture and jacket, however, were recovered from the crime scene.

“All those who were tried for the murder of the 58th victim were acquitted, on reasonable doubt, and to reopen the case for him will constitute double jeopardy,” said Mr. Drilon, a former Justice secretary.

A Quezon City court on Thursday convicted almost a hundred people in the massacre of more than 50 people, including 32 journalists, in what a global media watchdog has called the single deadliest attack on journalists.

Among those convicted were former Maguindanao Mayor Datu Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan, Jr. and his brother Zaldy, who is a former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, along with 26 other principal accused for 57 counts of murder.

More than a dozen more people were convicted as accessories to the crime. Their other brother, Datu Sajid Islam Ampatuan, was acquitted along with more than 50 others. — Charmaine A. Tadalan