Wife of Ampatuan Jr. dies of cardiac arrest

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — The spouse of the alleged key plotter of the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre died of cardiac arrest on Friday.

Relatives of Mayor Reshal Ampatuan of Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao, wife of the detained Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr., confirmed that she collapsed noontime Friday, while about to perform the Islamic Jumaah Friday worship rite in a prayer room in her office and died subsequently in a hospital an hour later.

She was reportedly rushed to the nearby Maguindanao Provincial Hospital in Shariff Aguak town, about two kilometers southwest of her office, after she fell pressing her chest and succumbed while physicians were providing medication.

Her husband, son of the late former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr. has been incarcerated since December 2009, being prosecuted for the election-related massacre a week before of 58 people, among them the wife of then Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, now third-termer governor of Maguindanao.

The massacre victims were in a convoy en route to the provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak to file for Mangudadatu his certificate of candidacy for Maguindanao governor when Andal Jr. and members of their clan militia flagged them down, herded them into a nearby hill in Barangay Masalay in Ampatuan town and there killed them using assault rifles and machine guns.