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.