Two Filipino army commanders
connived in the murder of Italian missionary Father Fausto
Tentorio on Mindanao on October 17, 2011, state prosecutor Peter
Ong says.
Ong has cited a dozen suspects in the murder including
government militia and the two commanders.
At the time of the murder, two civilians were accused.
In December 2011 authorities in the Philippines
arrested a man suspected of killing Tentorio in an
ambush outside his parish church in the southern part of the
country.
Jimmy Ato was in custody for allegedly gunning down Father
Tentorio, 59, as he left the church in Arakan in the province of
Cotabato in October, Justice Minister Leila de Lima said.
As police apprehended Ato, his brother and suspected
accomplice Robert fired at federal agents and eluded arrest.
The brother is wanted for allegedly driving the getaway
motorcycle in the killing of the priest, which de Lima told
local press was possibly motivated by "local politics" in the
restive region.
Ato was also wanted in a separate case of homicide and
arson, the justice minister said.
Tentorio, who came from the northern Italian town of Lecco,
had been a missionary in the Philippines for more than 30 years
and was leaving church after morning mass to attend a clergy
meeting in Kidapawan when he was shot.
"He worked in the area which is full of marginalised
people, indigenous and Muslims. He was much loved," local bishop
Romolo de la Cruz told ANSA.
"In 2003 he escaped an attempt on his life. For more than 30
years he did magnificent work there, he was loved by everyone".
Tentorio was the third priest from PIME to be murdered in
Mindanao.
Father Tullio Favalli was killed by a paramilitary group in
April 1985 in the same area of Kidapawan while Father Salvador
Carzedda was gunned down in Zamboanga City in March 1992 by two
men on a motorcycle.
Two other Italian priests, Luciano Benedetti and Giancarlo
Bossi, were kidnapped in Mindanao and later released.
Tentorio, who was known as 'Father Pops', arrived in the
Philippines in 1978 and was first assigned to Ayala, in the
Archdiocese of Zamboanga, for two years.
He was assigned to the Diocese of Kidapawan in 1980 and was
a mission administrator in the parish of Columbio in Sultan
Kudarat, a parish that includes Muslims and indigenous people.
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