Sayadi ready to face charges linking her to Maguindanao massacre

COTABATO CITY -- The city administrator here on Friday said she will face the charges lodged against her last Tuesday by relatives of the victims of the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao Massacre.In a statement, Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, sister of Cotabato City Mayor Japal Guiani, Jr., said she is ready to answer accusations she was involved in the massacre in proper time and in an appropriate forum.Sayadi was one of 50 people charged last Tuesday as new suspects in the massacre.Sayadi was the solicitor-general of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, under Regional Governor Zaldy Ampatuan, when members of the Ampatuan allegedly perpetrated the massacre, which left 58 people dead, more than 30 of them journalists.Sayadi, however, said she was only a solicitor-general of the ARMM then, not a political adviser of the Ampatuans.Sayadi is among the latest batch of 50 people implicated by relatives of victims of the massacre, the country’s worst election-related violence ever.The complainants signed the charge sheets last Tuesday in Buluan town, the new provincial capital of Maguindanao, in the presence of provincial prosecutor Tocod Ronda and private prosecutor Nena Santos.At least 14 from among the latest group of suspects in the massacre were members of the Ampatuan clan, among them Benzar and Nanon, both grandsons of former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan, Sr.Benzar is mayor of Mamasapano town in the second district of Maguindanao. His mother, Rebecca, eldest daughter of the detained Andal, Sr., was also named respondent to the massacre case.Also charged were the former governor’s daughters-in-law, Reshal and Sahara, who are mayors of Maguindanao’s Datu Unsay and Sharif Aguak towns, respectively.Sayadi told reporters the imputations against her were politically-motivated,” fabricated to malign her.Sayadi has been working since 2010 as city administrator, under her brother, who is seeking a third term as mayor of Cotabato City in 2016. This is an old case, revived, or opened whenever the local election is near,” she said in a statement she read before reporters at the city hall Friday morning. (JOHN UNSON)