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| Andal Ampatuan (C) listens to his lawyer in the courtroom in Manila. Photo: Reuters. |
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The trial has begun in the Philippines of an influential politician accused of taking a leading part in the country's worst mass-killing. Andal Ampatuan, who belongs to a powerful southern clan, is alleged to have organised the ambush last November of a convoy of a political rival, in which 57 people - including 30 journalists - were shot dead. He denies the charges.
The first witness, Mr Ampatuan's former aide, Lakmudin
Saliao, told the court how,
six days before the attack,
the Ampatuan clan gathered to
debate how to deal with the
rival politician's electoral
challenge. "That's easy,
father. We kill all of them
when they come here," Saliao
quoted Mr Ampatuan as telling
his father at the meeting, which the witness said gathered all clan leaders at the patriarch's home.
Mr Saliao said the father then
instructed his son how to execute the plan. "Do not entrust the roadblock to others. You
yourself should stop them at
the highway, near the place
where a backhoe is conducting
some diggings," the witness quoted the patriarch as telling his son.
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