Arraignment of Zaldy Ampatuan postponed

THE REGIONAL trial court (RTC) of Quezon City postponed the  arraignment of former ARMM Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan last 25 April 2012 to allow him to file a motion for reconsideration of the court’s earlier order setting his arraignment.

Ampatuan’s lawyer Sigfrid Philip Fortun requested that his client be given time to appeal the scheduling of his arraignment, and also argued that “arraigning Ampatuan would deprive the latter of his right to appeal to the Supreme Court (SC) the Court of Appeals (CA) decision junking his petition [for certiorari and prohibition (with finality)],” a Philippine Daily Inquirer 26 April 2012 report said.

The Inquirer reported that Quezon City RTC Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes said that “(Zaldy) Ampatuan would be arraigned after she rules on the opposing arguments of the prosecution and the defense on the issue of the arraignment.”

Only Zaldy’s father Andal Ampatuan Sr. and brother Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan Jr. have been arraigned among the members of the main branch of the Ampatuan clan. Only two of the 196 accused were in detention as of April 2012.

The Former Special 11^th Division affirmed its 8 November 2011 ruling upholding the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) filing of the criminal information against Zaldy Ampatuan. In the 16-page resolution dated 18 April 2012, the CA through Associate Justice Noel Tijam said “there is nothing new in petitioners’ motion for reconsideration that would compel us to digress from our previous findings.”

The CA Manila also junked Ampatuan’s motion for a reinvestigation of the case, saying that it “would cause  grave injustice both to the prosecution as well as to the defense.”

Zaldy Ampatuan sought the reinstatement of the 16 April 2010 resolution issued by former Justice Secretary Alberto Agra dropping him from the list of accused in the Ampatuan Massacre trial. On 5 May 2010, Agra reversed his own resolution after a private prosecutor presented additional evidence against Zaldy and Akmad “Tato” Ampatuan.

The relatives of the massacre victims said they were disappointed with the postponement of Zaldy’s arraignment. In a Facebook post of JUSTICE! Now, a group of the families of the media victims in the Massacre, one of the widows said that ““Dismayado ako at malungkot dahil hindi natuloy ang matagal na naming inaantay na mabasahan ng sakdal si Zaldy at ang iba pang akusado sa kaso ng Ampatuan Massacre kahit pa sabihin nila sa korte na not guilty sila ( I am dismayed and saddened because we have long  been waiting for the arraignment of Zaldy and the other accused, even if they just declared that they’re not guilty).” (https://www.facebook.com/notes/nenen-momay-castillo/justice-now-dismayado-sa-di-tuloy-na-arraignment-ni-zaldy-ampatuan/10150703124601818)