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Date: 12 February 2010
Source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=549024&publicationSubCategoryId=200

Mangudadatu escapes attack; assailant shot dead
(philstar.com) Updated February 12, 2010 10:13 AM

MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Police fatally shot a man Thursday who allegedly tried to snatch a daughter of a politician whose family members were among 57 people killed late last year in the Philippines’ worst political massacre, officials said.

Esmael Mangudadatu, a gubernatorial candidate in the southern Philippines, was in a mall in Davao city when a man tried to kidnap one of his two daughters, an 11-year-old, police said. 

A police officer assigned as Mangudadatu’s security detail ran to the girl’s rescue and in an ensuing scuffle for the officer’s pistol the suspect was shot dead five times, said provincial police chief Pedro Tango. 

Mangudadatu, however, told reporters that he was the purported target of the attack. He said the assailant was one of the gunmen wanted by authorities in connection with the Nov. 23 massacre, when a group of his supporters, family and journalists were slain as they traveled to file his candidacy papers in Maguindanao province ahead of May elections. 

Prosecutors filed charges early this week against the head of a powerful clan and 195 others in the biggest and deadliest murder case since the country’s World War II war crimes trials.

The indictment said Andal Ampatuan Sr. and the others were part of a conspiracy to ambush and kill members of the rival Mangudadatu family and supporters. Mangudadatu’s wife, two sisters and several other relatives were among the 57 dead. 

The massacre was unprecedented in the Philippines, despite its notoriety for election violence and political killings that have claimed hundreds of lives this decade alone.