MANILA - Only four of the 57 victims of an election-related massacre in Maguindanao have yet to be identified and claimed by their families, police said Saturday, as they ended the search for more corpses and mass graves.

Chief Superintendent Arturo Cacdac, director of the Philippine National Police’s Crime Laboratory, said 53 of the bodies recovered from two mass graves in Ampatuan town have been taken by their families.

Cacdac denied reports that the cadavers recovered from the massacre site are already decomposing along with other evidence. "That report is not very accurate," the crime laboratory chief said in a statement.

He said the four still unidentified corpses "are well preserved in funeral parlors."

Senior Superintendent Bienvenido Latag, ARMM police regional director, told reporters that they ended the retrieval of bodies and the search for more possible mass graves on Friday.

"We have 57 bodies in our official list. Of course, we are still checking and if there are reports of more bodies, we will verify those. But so far, the information that we have is that the total has not changed," he said, denying reports that quoted a police official saying he had counted 64 bodies from the slaughter.

Chief Superintendent Josefino Cataluna, the police chief of central Mindanao, also confirmed the toll.

The last 11 were pulled out from two adjacent mass graves on Wednesday, including 5 who were entombed along with three vehicles, police said.

The government has detained Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., a member of a powerful political clan in Maguindanao, for allegedly ordering and taking part in the killings.

Ampatuan Jr. allegedly ordered his private militia of more than 100 gunmen to open fire on the group, which included relatives of rival Muslim politician, Esmael Mangudadatu, some journalists, and motorists who were just passing by the area.

Eight other members of the powerful Ampatuan clan have been invited for police questioning after witnesses also linked them to the killings.

The relatives and the journalists were travelling to the Commision on Elections to file a certificate of candidacy for Mangudadatu so he can run against Ampatuan Jr. for the post of provincial governor in next year's elections. With a report from Agence France-Presse