Police are seeking murder and kidnapping charges against members of a Muslim rebel faction for a rampage that killed dozens of combatants and forced thousands of villagers to flee in the southern Philippines last month, officials said on Wednesday.
Police forwarded criminal complaints to prosecutors in southern Maguindanao province this week against Ameril Umbra Kato, a hardline Muslim rebel leader with alleged links to key Asian terror suspects, and at least 113 other commanders and fighters of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement, national police investigation chief Director Samuel Pagdilao said.
Kato’s forces broke off last year from the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has been engaged in peace talks with the government for years.
Kato opposes the Malaysian-brokered negotiations, arguing that the talks have gone nowhere. He has vowed to continue a bloody rebellion for a separate homeland for minority Muslims in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.
After breaking off from the Moro group, Kato’s forces initially kept a low profile in their mountain encampments of Maguindanao, a violent region about 900 kilometres south of Manila, and he had a stroke in November, throwing uncertainty over his group.
However, on August 5, about 200 armed fighters from Kato’s groups launched rifle, grenade and mortar attacks against more than a dozen army camps and outposts along a key highway in Maguindanao and in nearby North Cotabato province, killing six soldiers, a police officer and at least two civilians.