By Bohol Island News Staff | 12:01 PM December 19, 2019
After 10 years of the Maguindanao massacre, Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 found Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr. and his brother Zaldy Ampatuan guilty.
Members of the Ampatuan political clan are among the over 100 individuals who were tried for the Nov. 23, 2009 massacre, when relatives of then Maguindanao gubernatorial candidate Esmael Mangudadatu and a convoy of 58 people including 32 journalists were stopped and executed by gunmen.
The bodies of the victims were found buried in the town of Ampatuan in Maguindanao province.
A total of 197 people, including 15 Ampatuans, were charged. Over the course of the trial, six were cleared, two discharged as state witnesses, and eight died in detention. Eighty people are still at large. When proceedings wrapped up after more than nine years, 101 defendants remained.
