Special court to handle ARMM high-profile cases pushed

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The security council of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) recommended the setting up of a special court and the enlistment of non-resident prosecutors to handle high-profile cases involving large criminal gangs and terrorists.

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman told The STAR Saturday the inter-agency regional peace and order council (RPOC) is keen on drafting a resolution urging President Rodrigo Duterte to help push the plan forward.

Hataman, as ARMM’s regional chief executive, chairs the RPOC, whose members include all five provincial governors in the autonomous region and the mayors of its two component cities, Lamitan and Marawi.

Hataman first talked about the importance of having a special court in the region and the employment of special prosecutors from outside of Mindanao during the RPOC’s meeting in Cotabato City last Thursday.

“With a special court and special prosecutors, high-profile cases involving `dreaded personalities’ can be litigated faster,” Hataman said.

He said their zeal to pursue the plan was bolstered by the “rescue” more than a week ago by members of the Maute terror group of eight companions from the provincial jail in Lanao del Sur.

The jail, located in Marawi City, is less than a kilometer away from the headquarters of the Army’s 103rd Brigade.

The Maute group, led by relatives Abdullah and Omar Maute, both ethnic Maranaws, boasts of its allegiance to the Independent State of Iraq and Syria. 

The Maute extremists carry black ISIS flags when they move from one hinterland to another in remote towns in the first district of Lanao del Sur.

The eight detainees they sprung from jail, three of them women, were to be prosecuted for possession of improvised explosive devices policemen found in their vehicle intercepted in early August at a checkpoint along a highway in a secluded town in Lanao del Sur.

There are dozens of criminal cases involving leaders of the Abu Sayyaf that are pending in courts in Basilan and Sulu, both component provinces of ARMM.

“Criminal cases involving terrorists and members of these groups should be litigated expeditiously. The detention of suspects in facilities vulnerable to attacks should not be prolonged,” Hataman said.

The powers of the judiciary are not among those that can be devolved to the ARMM, which has an executive department, presently under Hataman, and a 24-member law-making body, operating independently from each other but are bound by a common regional charter, the Republic Act 9054.

The Department of Justice is also not among the dozens of line agencies and support offices Malacañang devolved to ARMM based on RA 9054.