Luis Taruc, "Supremo" of the Hukbalahap, denied that his group was responsible for the crime, though he also claimed that the Huk were conducting an investigation of their own if one of the group had breached ranks and participated in the killing. Nonetheless, after Taruc's surrender in 1954, he was formally charged for the murder of Quezon and other members of her party; these charges would be dropped before they could be heard on trial. Throughout the 1950s, several other captured Huk members would be charged for participation in the assassination, with five of them being sentenced to death by a Cabanatuan City trial court. Luis Taruc later wrote the killings were discussed as an agenda item at the Dec. 1949 to Jan. 1950 Politburo meeting,"...the accidental killing in a Huk ambush of Mrs. Quezon, widow of the late President Quezon, and her daughter. The majority took a characteristic Communist attitude toward this deplorable event. The victims had been 'class enemies', and that settled everything."