Andal Ampatuan Sr. passes away

Andal Ampatuan Sr (Screenshot from GMA News footage)

MANILA — Former Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan, Sr., 74, suspected brain of the celebrated Maguindanao massacre, succumbed to cardiac arrest Friday night.

He passed away at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) in Quezon City at 10:02 p.m., according to Insp. Aries Villaester, spokesman for the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology-National Capital Region.

Ampatuan’s body was then taken at Bicutan at 2 a.m. Saturday and afterwards flown to Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao via Philippine Air Lines, and subsequently buried there at 2:45 p.m.

The deceased, was among the 103 suspects charged in connection with the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre which claimed the lives of 58 people, 32 of them media practitioners.

It was considered the country’s worst election-related violent incident.

He was confined at the NKTI since last June 5 after being diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer and taken to the medical facility’s intensive care unit last Monday due to a heart attack-induced coma.