Zaldy Ampatuan pleads not guilty to Ampatuan Massacre charges

CMFR/PHILIPPINES – A FORMER governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) accused of helping plan  the November 23,2009 Ampatuan Massacre pleaded “not guilty” last 12 December 2012 during his arraignment for  57 counts of murder.

Former ARMM Governor Zaldy Ampatuan is the third among the eight members of the Ampatuan clan accused of planning and carrying out the Massacre, and the 82^nd among the 98 persons currently in State custody already arraigned.

Judge Jocelyn Reyes-Solis of Branch 221 of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City had scheduled Zaldy’s arraignment for April 2012. However, the court postponed the April 2012 schedule to give due course to Zaldy’s motion questioning the judge’s 29 March 2012 order finding probable cause to arraign him.

Ampatuan filed a motion for reconsideration in which he claimed that his arraignment and all other proceedings against him should be dismissed due to the “procedural irregularities committed during the conduct of the preliminary investigation” of the case. He also alleged that the basis for his initial detention was only an already dismissed rebellion case.

However, the Judge Solis-Reyes decision noted that “the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court have already resolved these motions and upheld the indictment of the former ARMM governor.” The 4 December 2012 decision meant there were no longer any legal impediments to  Zaldy’s arraignment.