LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines — Police have arrested two suspects in an attack on Saturday in Balabagan, Lanao del Sur that killed a municipal councilor and hurt five others, but for a different murder case.
Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said Tuesday that Abdulazis Abdulkadir and Alimparok Pagrangan had been booked for killing Kapatagan town councilor Nasif Bansil while at the residence of Amer Sampiano, former mayor of Balabagan.
Mijares said Abdulkadir and Pagrangan both surrendered through local leaders late Sunday after learning that the ARMM police and the Army's 6th Infantry Division had dispatched teams to track them down.
The duo had been turned over to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-ARMM, which had a warrant for their arrest in connection with a murder in Cotabato City months ago.
"Definitely, they will be prosecuted separately for the death of Councilor Bansil," Mijares said.
Abdulkadir and Pagrangan, along with three other relatives opened fire on Sampiano's residential compound with assault rifles on Sunday, killing Bansil and hurting five other visitors of the former mayor.
They escaped in a blue Toyota Tamaraw FX parked nearby.
Sampiano's relatives shot at the getaway vehicle repeatedly as it sped away, killing one of its passengers, Fahad Guiday Abdulkader.
Pursuing police and Army personnel later found Abdulkader's body in the Tamaraw, which had been abandoned along a road in a secluded area two barangays away.
Mijares said the Lanao del Sur provincial police has sent emissaries to the Bansil and Sampiano families to warn them not to retaliate and to let authorities handle the atrocity by the book.
Most of the 39 towns in Lanao del Sur are locked in deadly clan feuds involving big families that keep arsenals of weapons as status symbols and to perpetuate political power.