Norodin Mariano, elder brother of the Otin Mariano who police arrested last week on suspicion he was the bomber in the October explosion, said the family was bent filing the charges.
Mariano said his brother, also nicknamed Siris, was arrested last week in Barangay Poblacion in Carmen and underwent “physical and mental torture when he was under the custody of the police”.
Alludin said he wanted justice served for Siris. “The police picked up the wrong guy, so they’re responsible for that,” he said in the Maguindanao dialect.
“He was hanged in a five-foot deep well, his head banged, and was even electrocuted. The police want Siris to admit he was Commander Kule Mamagong when he’s not,” said Norodin told an interview over DXND, an Oblate-ran radio station.
Police opertives in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) arrested Siris while inside the public market in Barangay Poblacion last January 12. Siris has just sold bags of corn at that time, according to Norodin.
Police claimed Siris resembled Mamagong, who was charged with murder cases in connection with the October 10 bombings last year in Central Mindanao that killed eight and injured 30 others.
Siris and Commander Kule were buddies then in the 1980’s when the two were neighbors in Barangay Cadi-is in Carmen. “I have known Siris and Kule for so long a time. They’ve lived in my village since the ‘80s. I know their families. So I would know that Siris is not Kule,” said Barangay Cadi-is Chairman Sambutuan Alludin.
The PNP-ARMM presented Siris to the media in a press briefing January 13 as the Commander Kule Mamagong. Siris was sent to the North Cotabato Provincial Jail in Amas Complex here where Mariano said his brother again underwent torture from other inmates.
Torture, according to Prosecutor Al Calica, head of the Task Force on Anti-Terrorism of the Department of Justice, is prohibited under the Law on Custodial Investigation. “Under this law, the rights of the accused are protected. Whoever violates those rights should be sanctioned,” Calica said.
“Any public officer or employee, or anyone acting under his order or his place, who arrests, detains or investigates any person for the commission of an offense shall inform the latter, in a language known to and understood by him, of his rights to remain silent and to have competent and independent counsel,” Calica said.