'Agus linked to Jakarta and Manila blasts'

'Agus linked to Jakarta and Manila blasts'

Agence France-Presse, Manila

Philippine authorities said Friday they had received reliable reports that an Indonesian detained since March was involved in deadly bomb blasts in Manila and Jakarta.

Justice Undersecretary Jose Calida said the reports, relayed to them by undisclosed international contacts, implicated Agus Dwikarna, a suspected Islamic militant, in the two bombings.

More than a dozen people were killed in the Manila attack when a bomb detonated on a train in December 2000.

The Jakarta blast occurred outside the Philippine embassy in August 2000, killing two people and injuring 20 others.

"We received information that he was a participant in the planning of the (railway) bombing and the bombing of the residence of Philippine ambassador to Indonesia Leonides Caday. We are following up this lead," Calida said.

He said the original source for the information was one of 13 men arrested in Singapore in December for allegedly planning attacks on US targets as part of a plot by the al-Qaeda network of suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

The arrested members are accused of belonging to the Islamic militant Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group, which is part of the Southeast Asian network of al-Qaeda.

Philippine police have previously accused Dwikarna of belonging to JI.

Calida said if they can get proof of the allegations, they will charge Dwikarna with arson and murder.

He did not specify who relayed the information from the arrested JI member in Singapore.

Dwikarna and two other Indonesians were arrested at Manila airport on March 13 allegedly after explosives were found in the luggage of one of them.

However the two others were freed in April because there was insufficient evidence to hold them.

Dwikarna is a coordinator for Laskar Jundullah, a militant Muslim group advocating the imposition of Islamic sharia law in Indonesia.

Another Indonesian, Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, 30, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in the Philippines in April for illegal possession of explosives.

Philippine authorities have said al-Ghozi was an explosives expert for the Jemaah Islamiyah extremist group and that he was involved in the December 2000 bomb blasts in Manila.

They said he planned similar attacks against US targets in Singapore and that he was linked to Dwikarna and the two other Indonesians.