Maguindanao massacre: how a manservant, a backhoe and a flurry of texts helped convict the Ampatuans

When a Philippine court last week sentenced dozens of police officers, militia men and two political warlords of a powerful Muslim clan to life imprisonment for a 2009 massacre in Maguindanao province, it did not use bullets or guns as evidence.This despite authorities recovering more than 100 empty shells from a variety of assault rifles at the scene of the crime, alongside 57 mutilated, bullet-ridden bodies.Which must have come as a shock to the legal team of Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan Jnr,…