Philippine police take massacre suspects into custody

MANILA, Nov. 26 (Kyodo) -    Philippine authorities said Thursday they have

taken into custody a provincial governor's son considered to be the "prime suspect"

in Monday's election-related massacre of nearly 60 unarmed civilians on the southern

island of Mindanao.

     They said they have also detained four police officers and at least 20 militiamen

associated with the Ampatuan clan who allegedly took part in the killings in central

Mindanao's Maguindanao Province.

     "Their firearms will be examined, their fingerprints will be taken and compared to

those at the crime scene," Philippine National Police chief Jesus Verzosa told local radio.

     Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno told a news conference that Andal Ampatuan Jr., the son of Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr. and mayor of Datu Unsay town, was turned over by his family to authorities.

     He also said four police officers implicated in the crime were "arrested" Monday and are being held "under restrictive custody."

     Puno said the younger Ampatuan and the other suspects will be flown to the main police headquarters in Manila where the Justice Department will conduct an inquest into their alleged role in the carnage.

     The arrests come three days after the abduction and cold-blooded killings of political supporters of a senior member of the rival Mangudadatu clan as they were on the way to register his candidacy for governor of Maguindanao.

     The massacre victims  also included at least a dozen journalists and even some locals who just happened to be in the area at the time. As many as 57 bodies, many of them mutilated, have been recovered from shallow, hillside graves.

     "At this point, Datu Unsay town mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. is a suspect," Verzosa said, adding that soldiers have disarmed the Ampatuan clan's 350-member paramilitary force.

     The military later called the governor's son the "primary suspect."

     A radio report quoted him as saying the charges against him are "baseless" and his "conscience is clear."

     However, Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, the man seeking to replace Andal Ampatuan Sr. as governor, has told police that his wife, who was among those killed, phoned him around 9 a.m. Monday to tell him their six-car convoy had been blocked by the  Ampatuans, including the governor's son, who had slapped her.

     The Ampatuans have had a running feud with the Mangudadatu clan over control of Maguindanao, a Muslim-majority province located in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.