Pikit residents want cop, son charged over recovered SAF44 rifle

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines -- Residents in Pikit town want their former deputy police chief prosecuted for his son’s alleged and unexplained ownership of a gun issued to one of 44 police troopers killed in Mamasapano, Maguindanao last year.

Senior Inspector Sindatu Karim is on “floating status” since anti-narcotics operatives from the Police Regional Office-12 in General Santos City found the missing firearm in the house of his son, Nasser, two weeks ago.

The raiding team was to search for drugs in the house of the suspect but found the missing Ferfrans 5.56-millimeter assault rifle instead.

Karim and his son are neighbors in a residential area in Pikit town in the second district of North Cotabato.

The Region 12 Crime Laboratory confirmed on Wednesday that the rifle, bearing serial numbers FF 090465, was issued to PO2 Ephraim Mejia, one of the 44 Special Action Force (SAF) commandos killed in an encounter with Moro guerillas and private armed groups in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao on January 25, 2015.

Barangay officials, who asked not to be identified, said Karim should be dismissed from the police service for his son’s offense.

“It gave our municipality a big shame,” said one of the ranting barangay officials.

Even local officials could not fully comprehend until now how the firearm ended up with Karim’s son.

“He and his son should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of law,” a local official told The STAR on Thursday. 

Superintendent Romeo Galgo, spokesman of PRO-12, said a macro-etching process initiated by experts determined the correct serial numbers of the rifle as listed in SAF’s firearm registry.  

Local officials lauded the PRO-12 for acting immediately on the case.

“We ought to thank the PRO-12 and the North Cotabato provincial police office for having done their assignments fast enough,” said an elected official, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Galgo said Karim is now confined at PRO-12 without any assignment.

Galgo said the PRO-12 will act on the issue involving him and his son based on investigation reports and the findings of experts who confirmed SAF’s ownership of the rifle.

The rifle was what Mejia carried when he and his 44 companions figured in an 11-hour running firefight with Moro gunmen in three barangays in Mamasapano last year.

The slain SAF personnel were retreating from a raid in Barangay Pidsandawan in Mamasapano, where they had killed Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, when guerillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters attacked them from different directions.

The hostilities, now known as the infamous “Mamasapano incident,” also resulted in the deaths of 17 MILF members and five civilians caught in the crossfire.