The Office of the Maguindanao Provincial Prosecutor ordered yesterday the Provincial Warden of Maguindanao to release the primary suspect in the Jan. 4 bombing in Parang, Maguindanao for lack of evidence and conflicting allegations of the lone witness to the crime. Fiscal Rodolfo Yanson, officer-in-charge of the Office of the Maguindanao Prosecutor, said the prosecution found "no enough ground to continue the investigation of the charges filed against Hadji Omar Ramalan whose aliases include Commander Bagi-Bagi and Kusain Taha." Yanson explained that the witness was not sure if the person on the cartographic sketch that the Police and Army had shown and the one who parked the Sky Go motorcycle near the Parang gymnasium on Jan. 4 was actually Ramalan. The 81-mm mortar bomb, reports said, was placed near the Sky Go motorcycle. "There were conflicting allegations and circumstances as regards the case. In case of doubt, the doubt shall be resolved in favor of the accused," he stressed. "If there is another witness who would testify against the suspect and could present sufficient evidence, there is no reason that Ramalan would not be arrested again," the prosecution said.
Meantime, the case against the town's vice mayor, town councilor, and nine other suspects linking them to the Jan. 4 bombing still holds. Three of the suspects who turned witnesses alleged that Parang Vice Mayor Adnan Biruar, Parang Councilor Henry Abdul Kitab, and several others "participated in the plot to assassinate Parang Mayor Vivencio Bataga." "The statements of the suspects-turned-witnesses seem credible as they themselves admitted having participated in the planning stage to the execution of the crime," said Yanson. |