Manila - The principal suspect in the grisly killing of 57 people in the southern Philippines surrendered Thursday to a senior aide of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who has been criticised for her government's timid response to the carnage. Police immediately filed a criminal complaint of multiple murder against Datu Andal Ampatuan Junior before state prosecutor Jovencito Zunio held inquest proceedings at the airport in General Santos City, 1,065 kilometres south of Manila.
Andal Junior was whisked to General Santos City after his family turned him over to presidential aide Jesus Dureza in Shariff Aguak town in nearby Maguindanao province.
He maintained his innocence of the mass killing, which occurred on Monday in a hilly area in Salman village in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao.
"I have no involvement," he said three times shortly after arriving at the airport in General Santos City.
He was scheduled to be flown to Manila, where he was expected to be detained at the national police headquarters in Camp Crame.
Four police officers from Maguindanao province were also taken to Manila for questioning about their alleged complicity in the crime.
Presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde said the surrender and the filing of charges against Andal Junior was just the beginning of government efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of the heinous crime.
"The government will be relentless in bringing to justice all responsible for the gruesome massacre," he said. "President Arroyo wants all the culprits punished without fear or favour."
Before Andal Junior's surrender, government troops took over the main government building of Maguindanao province and the nearby municipal buildings of Shariff Aguak and Ampatuan towns to secure the area.
More than 300 government militiamen linked to the Ampatuan family were also being disarmed, while the entire police force in Ampatuan town was suspended pending investigation, according to Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno.
Puno rejected criticism that the Arroyo administration was giving special treatment to the suspect, whose family members were close allies and allegedly played a key role in rigging the 2004 presidential vote in the area to ensure Arroyo's victory.
"There has never been any appeasement, there has never been any negotiations," he said. "The family had been told what our position was on the matter."
"If Datu Andal Junior would not have boarded the helicopter, the armed forces and the national police were prepared to take all action and exert all physical force to make sure that the suspects will be brought to the inquest."
Puno said the Department of Justice discreetly took the statements of several witnesses to the mass slaughter over the past two days to build a case against Andal Junior.
According to witnesses, Andal Junior allegedly led a group of about 100 heavily armed men that stopped a convoy of a political rival and diverted them to the area where they were killed.
The victims, six of whom were beheaded and shot multiple times at close range, were on their way to file the certificate of candidacy of Buluan town Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu for Maguindanao governor in next year's elections.
They included Mangudadatu's wife, two sisters, two human rights lawyers and at least 27 local journalists who were covering the event.
Mangudadatu's candidacy would pit him against Andal Junior, son of incumbent Governor Andal Ampatuan Senior.
Filipinos are due to vote for president, vice president, senators, congressmen and local officials in May. Elections in the country have traditionally been marred by violence despite additional gun restrictions imposed during the campaign and polling periods.
