“We need a backhoe to empty out the previously excavated mass graves to sift through the debris to ascertain whether an untouched part of the grave may still hold some human remains,” according to Peruvian forensic anthropologist Dr. Jose Pablo Baraybar who is helping gather forensic evidence to use in the coming court trial.

They are still looking for a possible 58th victim.

I am reprinting below the latest press release issued by Atty. Romel Regalado Bagares, executive director of the  lawyers’ NGO, the Center for International Law, which is also helping out.

PRESS RELEASE 12/3/09

Cotabato City – The independent forensic team led by Peruvian forensic anthropologist Dr. Jose Pablo Baraybar said yesterday it is “now almost sure that there is a 58^th body” that is yet unaccounted for after his team’s discovery of a partial upper left denture with a metal clasp at the crime scene that did not fit any of the remains already recovered.

As this developed, Baraybar and his team were set to fly back to Manila yesterday on the advice of their private security consultants who reported that the group was being cased by armed men.

Dr. Baraybar  said the dentures belonged to slain Midland Review staff Reynaldo “Bebot” Momay, of Tacurong City Sultan Kudarat, according to his dental records.

“However, the dentures  did not fit the set of human remains earlier identified as belonging to Momay,” said  the forensic anthropologist, adding that the same body is being claimed as well by the families of  Victor Nuñez  and a certain Tiamzon, both of UNTV based in General Santos City.

The discovery of the dentures brings to 58 the number of people who perished in the Nov. 23 carnage. Ealier, authorities reported that a total of 57 human remains have been recovered from the site and of these, only three have remained unidentified.

However, Dr. Baraybar’s team found that of the three remains, two have a full set of teeth while the third has full upper and lower dentures. “This clearly means we have another body still missing.”

Baraybar’s team began evidence-gathering at the massacre site in Barangay Salman, Ampatuan town Sunday.  The dentures were recovered Wednesday in a grassy area near one of the vehicles – a Songgyang van – in the convoy that was waylaid by some 100 armed men  linked to the powerful Ampatuan clan.

The Peruvian forensic expert said Momay’s dentures are  held in place by a metal clasp and could not be easily dislodged unless extracted by an indirect force. “That is the best guess we can have at this moment.”

Dr. Baraybar and his British counterpart Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert and experienced field investigator, lead a team of forensic investigators and lawyers from the Center for International Law (CenterLaw) deputized by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to conduct an independent parallel investigation on the Ampatuan massacre.  He also directed the Office on Missing Persons and Forensics of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo.

Baraybar and Cobb-Smith are joined in the team by Centerlaw lawyers Harry Roque, Joel Butuyan, Romel Bagares and Gilbert Andres.

The group’s recovery efforts had been hampered by the lack of heavy equipment. “We need a backhoe to empty out the previously excavated mass graves to sift through the debris to ascertain whether an untouched part of the grave may still hold some human remains,” said Dr. Baraybar.  “It has to be carefully done – we have some experience doing this in the Balkans in our work for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.”

The legal team’s chief counsel, Harry Roque, said he was able to arrange for a backhoe and a truck for the use of the forensic investigation to be fielded to the crime scene by Saturday morning.

“We’re moving our base of operations from Cotabato City to Koronadal City, where the security risks are not as high,” said Roque.