RP mounts major operation to recapture JI militant
RP mounts major operation to recapture JI militant
Agencies, Manila
Police mounted a major operation in the southern Philippines on Friday to recapture fugitive Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) militant Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, who escaped last week, military sources and reports said.
Operations were focussed on the port of General Santos on Mindanao island, military sources in Manila and in Mindanao told AFP.
ABS-CBN television reported that national police chief Hermogenes Ebdane was personally directing the operation from General Santos.
Meanwhile, police on Friday asked the ombudsman to file charges against seven jailers of al-Ghozi, an Indonesian who escaped last week from a national police prison in Manila where he was serving a 17-year jail term for illegally procuring more than a tonne of explosives.
The police complaint accused the seven, including superintendents Reuben Galban, Carlito Natanauan and Guillermo Danipog, of graft for "causing undue injury to the government through gross inexcusable negligence."
After he was sentenced, Al-Ghozi had confessed that he used some of the explosives to blow up a Manila rail coach in December 2000 in an attack that claimed 22 lives.
He also said he planned to use the rest to blow up Western embassies in Singapore.
Al-Ghozi's escape has embarrassed President Gloria Arroyo's government, a key supporter of the U.S.-led war on international terror.
Arroyo pledged on Friday that the fugitive, the most senior JI member to have been in custody in Southeast Asia, would be recaptured.
"The threat of Al-Ghozi is real and we will hunt him down until he is accounted for," she said in a statement.
"The Filipino people and our international allies are on the lookout and he will be caught in the dragnet one way or the other."
Arroyo on Friday rejected international perception that the country was "generally unsafe" after the escape of Al-Ghozi from police headquarters.
While admitting that the escape last week of convicted Indonesian terrorist Al-Ghozi has renewed the threat of terrorism in the Philippines, Arroyo stressed that the government was exhausting all efforts to recapture the fugitive.
Arroyo said that due to Al-Ghozi's escape, "there is a perception of instability in our country" that has prompted several foreign governments to issue new travel advisories covering the entire Philippines.
But she stressed that "these perceptions are exaggerated and they do not merit the judgment that our country is generally unsafe".
Meanwhile, the Philippine army advised the public on Friday not to be alarmed by troop movements in Manila before a key presidential speech as rumors swirled of a brewing coup by disgruntled junior officers.
The unusual statement came as Arroyo sought to play down concerns that a group of soldiers was seeking broader support within the 113,000-strong military for a plot to oust her government.
Arroyo, who is due to give a state of the nation address on Monday detailing her achievements and future policies, has urged the public to stay calm in a country where rumors and conspiracy theories are the order of the day.