Philippine agents who nabbed JI bomber asked to do it all again
Philippine agents who nabbed JI bomber asked to do it all again
Agence France-Prersse, Manila
Military intelligence agents who earlier captured Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) bomber Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi have been assigned to recapture him after his escape from a police jail, a spokesman said on Sunday.
The military intelligence team that conducted surveillance on Al-Ghozi leading to his arrest in the commercial district of Manila in January, 2002, has been recalled to help hunt him down again, Col. Daniel Lucero said.
The team is familiar with Al-Ghozi and his contacts and could provide valuble assistance to the police who are searching for the Indonesian fugitive, the colonel said.
However he would not give any details on the manhunt for Al- Ghozi, who slipped out of the Philippine police headquarters jail on July 14, much to the embarrassment of President Gloria Arroyo.
His escape, along with two members of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim kidnapping group, has harmed the Philippines' image as a reliable ally in the international war against terror. It has also raised questions of possible police connivance in the jailbreak.
Six police guards are facing administrative charges while four are also facing criminal charges after security at the jail was exposed as extremely lax, with guards to the easily-opened cells either absent or asleep.
Al-Ghozi was convicted last year after confessing to using part of a huge explosives cache to blow up a Manila train and other targets in December 2000, killing 22 people.
He said he planned to ship the rest to Singapore as part of a JI plot to blow up Western embassies there.
Separately, Philippine police said on Sunday they arrested eight men for illegal possession of chemicals that could have been used in making explosives.
About 220 sacks of ammonium nitrate were found aboard two trucks in the town of San Juan in Batangas province just south of Manila, said Senior Superintendent Eugenio Alcovindas.
The eight men, mostly residents of provinces south of Manila, were arrested after they failed to produce documents authorizing them to transport the chemicals which can be used to make explosives.
It was not immediately clear what they intended to do with the chemicals.
Meanwhile, Muslim separatist guerrillas on Sunday accused the military of violating a newly-forged truce when they seized weapons in a raid in the southern Philippines.
The military insisted that the soldiers seized the weapons in a clash with about 40 "cattle rustlers" in Pagalungan town in the main southern island of Mindanao on Saturday.
Eid Kabalu, spokesman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's main Muslim separatist group, said he would file the complaint with the government peace panel and ask Malaysia, which is mediating in the talks, to look into the charges.
Kabalu said soldiers, many wearing civilian clothes, raided the isolated community on Saturday.