No clues yet on sultan’s slay

SULTAN KUDARAT, Maguindanao — Police were still clueless on the identity of the gunman who killed Maguindanao’s reigning 25th sultan in front of his residence here Wednesday night.

Senior Superintendent Akmad Mamalinta, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said investigators, with the help of the military, were still gathering information on who gunned down the 46-year-old Sultan Amir Baraguir.

Mamalinta said they have sought the help of local and religious leaders to solve the crime.

Baraguir had just alighted from a car near his frontyard when the man, armed with a caliber .45 automatic, approached and shot him several times in the head.

The man also shot and wounded Baraguir’s younger sibling, Datu Andih, before fleeing on board a motorcycle driven by another man.

Local officials related either by blood or affinity to Baraguir have appealed to members of his clan not to retaliate and instead allow the police to investigate the incident.

Among those who have cautioned the Baraguirs not to take the law into their own hands were Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema and Datu Norodin Matalam, vice mayor of Pagalungan, Maguindanao. Both are related to the slain sultan.

"We have to live up to the ideals of the late Datu Amir, who was a peace advocate and a staunch promoter of cultural solidarity among Mindanao’s Moro communities. We must let justice take its natural course," Sema said.

Col. Franklin del Prado, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said their commander, Maj. Gen. Agustin Dema-ala, has fielded more than a dozen intelligence agents to help the police gather information leading to the arrest of Baraguir’s killer.