- Title: Philippine court finds massacre masterminds guilty of 57 murders
- Date: 19th December 2019
- Summary: MAGUINDANAO PROVINCE, PHILIPPINES (FILE - NOVEMBER 24, 2009) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) POLICE INVESTIGATORS INSPECTING MASS GRAVE SITE POLICE INVESTIGATORS VARIOUS OF CRUSHED MEDIA VAN BEING LIFTED BY BACKHOE POLICE INVESTIGATORS SCANNING BURIED CAR ABANDONED MEDIA VEHICLE
- Embargoed: 2nd January 2020 07:46
- Keywords: Ampatuan clan election journalists massacre trial violence
- Location: MANILA, MAGUINDANAO PROVINCE, PHILIPPINES
- City: MANILA, MAGUINDANAO PROVINCE, PHILIPPINES
- Country: Philippines
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions
- Reuters ID: LVA002BAN3JGN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A Philippine court found top members of a political clan guilty on Thursday (December 19) of masterminding a 2009 massacre of 57 people, among them 32 journalists, in the country's worst single instance of election violence.
Members of three generations of the influential Ampatuan family were among those sentenced to life imprisonment on multiple counts of murder, in a complicated verdict involving more than a hundred defendants. Over 28 people received the maximum penalty of life imprisonment, 15 sentenced six to 10 years and eight months, 56 acquitted and seven dismissed.
The trial had been a crucial test of impunity in country where provincial power is often decided by corruption, intimidation and violence.
The Ampatuan family, a dynasty in the southern province of Maguindanao, had been accused of conspiring to ambush the convoy of a rival clan as it travelled to register its candidate for a gubernatorial election, an attack that spiralled into a bloodbath orchestrated by their own private army.
Among the casualties were the wife and relatives of the rival candidate, lawyers and 32 media workers, who were executed beside a rural road in a volley of gunfire, before being buried with their vehicles in a huge pit dug by an excavator. It was one of the world's single, biggest attacks on journalists and has been the most anticipated verdicts in the Philippines given the notoriety of the Ampatuan family and political ties that went all the way up to then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
(Production: Peter Blaza, Jay Ereno) - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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