Philippine police find no trace of Al-Ghozi
Philippine police find no trace of Al-Ghozi
Agencies, Manila
Police crack teams rounded up dozens of men on Monday in a Muslim
community near Manila in a search for a suspected Indonesian
terrorist who escaped from jail, but found no trace of the
country's most wanted fugitive.
The raid came as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said she
wants Fathur Roman Al-Ghozi back in jail with his alleged
cohorts.
Al-Ghozi, a suspected Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) bomb expert, and
two alleged members of the Abu Sayyaf Moro extremist group
escaped a week ago from police custody, in a major embarrassment
for Arroyo and her high-profile war on terror.
JI is a Southeast Asian group believed linked to al-Qaeda. Al-
Ghozi has confessed to involvement in deadly bombings that killed
22 people in Manila in 2000 and was to have been arraigned on
Monday, but the proceeding was reset for Aug. 20.
In a vacant lot, police rounded up dozens of the men from
their houses in a Muslim enclave in suburban Quezon City's
Payatas district but did not find any of the escapees.
"We received an intelligence report that Al-Ghozi was hiding
there, but it turned out negative, they did not find him there,"
police Senior Supt. Enrique Robles told The Associated Press. The
men were lectured on the need to cooperate with police, he said.
Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman Leopoldo Bataoil
said on Sunday that the PNP has fielded 63 special tracker teams
backed by over 5,000 troops, 300,000 licensed security guards and
officers from some 42,000 villages nationwide in the manhunt for
Al-Ghozi.
A battalion of special action forces troops has also been
tapped as a mobile strike force.
"We have to focus on the manhunt with the same determination
as we conduct the probe within the PNP to unearth possible
collusion," Arroyo said in a statement on Monday, adding that
"the dragnet has been spread far and wide."
A police spokesman, Ricardo de Leon, said Monday that fugitive
Al-Ghozi has not slipped out of the Philippines and elite
tracking teams are on his heels.
"All indications is that he is still in the Philippines," de
Leon told DZBB radio, when asked to comment on reports that Al-
Ghozi may have reached Indonesia.
Foreign Secretary Blas Ople also ordered Philippine consular
offices all over the country to be on the lookout for Al-Ghozi or
other criminal elements who might apply for passports.
Although an Indonesian, Al-Ghozi can speak the local language
and pass as a Filipino.