2 Cotabato leaders shot dead

COTABATO CITY — Suspected hired killers gunned down two prominent community leaders in separate attacks here yesterday in what investigators said could be the salvo of election-related killings in the city.

Senior Superintendent Amerodin Hamdag, city police director, identified the fatalities as Datu Mutalib Midtimbang, a scion of an influential political clan in Talayan, Maguindanao, and Arnold Florido, chairman of Barangay Rosary Heights IV, a vote-rich area.

Midtimbang was in front of his house when the gunman clad in a police uniform, shot him.

He is a close relative of Datu Midpantao Midtimbang, former vice governor of Maguindanao and a popular member of the Tabligh, an influential Muslim missionary group.

Florido, on the other hand, was on his way home from the barangay hall when a bicycle-riding man shot him twice from behind with a caliber .45 pistol, killing him on the spot. — John Unson