Rebel leader sent back to Manila
Rebel leader sent back to Manila
MANILA (Agencies): A detained leader of the Abu Sayyaf kidnap gang was turning into political football on Friday as provincial officials sent him back to the Philippine capital Manila amid fears of a rebel backlash if his trial goes ahead.
The justice department was forced to remove Hector Janjalani, brother of Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffy Janjalani, from a prison in the southern city of Zamboanga after local officials secured a Supreme Court ruling barring his trial there.
Janjalani was to have been tried in Zamboanga in July for multiple kidnappings, but provincial officials feared the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim rebel group known for its spate of kidnappings and for attacks on Christians, might try to rescue Janjalani or disrupt the trial with bombings and other attacks.
Escorted by soldiers and jail officials, the hand-cuffed defendant was flown back to Manila and taken to a police jail in the southeastern suburb of Taguig.
About 47 other arrested Abu Sayyaf suspects would be flown to Manila at a later date, said Belcie Agustin, spokesman for the Zamboanga city prison.
After Zamboanga secured the Supreme Court ban, the justice department proposed to move the trial to the central city of Cebu, but the local government there also objected.
Janjalani will now be tried in Taguig at an undisclosed date. Jail sources said he would face other charges in Manila as well.
The mayor of Taguig, Freddie Tinga said his constituents have "very serious concerns about the potential powderkeg in the community" caused by Janjalani's arrival.
About 20,000 Muslims live in the district, he said. Janjalani was arrested in a shopping mall here last year while trying to sell a videotape of an American hostage the Abu Sayyaf then held.
He faces charges over the kidnapping of the American and about 50 Filipinos in an earlier hostage crisis which has since been resolved.
Despite his arrest, the Abu Sayyaf launched a new kidnapping spree in May, seizing U.S. and Filipino hostages. They still hold at least two Americans and 16 Filipinos in the southern island of Basilan.
The gang has eluded a 5,000-strong military task force in Basilan. It has freed some Filipino hostages, reportedly in exchange for ransoms, but also murdered 14 others.
The crisis has been compounded by accusations from former victims that military officials colluded with the kidnappers to help them escape a military cordon in June. Congress is investigating the charges.
Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes visited Basilan on Friday, saying he was "to check out the situation there" on the orders of President Gloria Arroyo.
Meanwhile, the Philippines will pay compensation of $5,000 to the next of kin of two Chinese men killed during a clash between soldiers and kidnappers holding the pair in the southern Philippines a week ago.
Another Chinese national escaped during the shootout on the island of Mindanao, while the whereabouts of a fourth Chinese man and his Filipino companion, who were also being held captive, were unknown, army officials said last Sunday.
Officials said the dead men, and the other who escaped, were engineers who had come to the Philippines to seek the release of a colleague who was abducted in June while working on an irrigation project on Mindanao.