MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Personnel of the elite police Special Action Force shot dead a suspect in the 2009 Ampatuan Massacre on Thursday who they said pulled out a gun when they tried to arrest him on Thursday morning.
According to police, Surin Mentang fired at SAF personnel and at soldiers from the Army's 40th Infantry Battalion as they were approaching his hideout in Sitio Itil in Barangay Satan in Shariff Aguak. Police and military personnel were to serve an arrest warrant on him.
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Police Col. Jibin Bongcayao, Maguindanao police director, said personnel of the provincial police and the operatives of the 41st Special Action Force, led by Captain Jovanie Julian, were forced to kill Mentang because he shot at them.
Bongcayao said Mentang was declared dead on arrival at the Maguindanao Provincial Hospital, some three kilometers from Barangay Satan.
A villager was wounded in the ensuing crossfire.
More than 50 suspects in the the country’s worst election-related violence ever remain at large more than a decade after the gruesome killing. More than 50 people, 38 of them members of the media in central Mindanao, were killed in an attack related to the gubernatorial elections of Maguindanao.