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Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Criminal charges filed v. 6 'Abu bombers'
By Benjamin Pulta
MANILA -- Criminal charges have been filed against six suspected Abu Sayyaf guerrillas who were arrested while allegedly plotting to bomb shopping malls, trains and television stations in Metro Manila, officials said Tuesday.
Police hauled the six handcuffed suspects before television cameras Tuesday in their first public appearance since their arrest late last month, when more than 50 kilograms of trinitrotoluene (TNT) and other bomb components were allegedly seized from them.
Several victims of previous Abu Sayyaf kidnappings identified two of the group during the police lineup.
At a hastily-called press briefing in Camp Aguinaldo, officials of the Justice Department's Witness Protection Program (WPP) presented Buddy and Divine Recio, Angie Montealegre and Marie Fe Rosedeno all victims of the Dos Palmas kidnapping incident in May 2001; Joel Guillo, who was seized on June 2, 2001 during the Lamitan siege; and Rolland Ullah, who was among those seized in Sipadan, Malaysia on April 23, 2000.
After almost two years, arrested Abu Sayyaf members Tuesday met their kidnap victims in Dos Palmas in Camp Aguinaldo.
The Recio couple pointed to the photograph of Alhasar Manatad Limbong known as Kosovo and Radzmar Sangkula Jul Hassan alias Radz, Abdurasid Banjeng Lim alias Hanipa; Montealegre identified Lim; Rosedeno pointed to Limbong and Lim, the same with Guillo; while Ullah pointed to all Limbong, Lim, Radendo Cain Dellosa and.
Montealegre failed to control his anger and slapped Hassan. Montealegre was with Gracia Burnham and Guillermo Sobero who was later beheaded by the Abu Sayyaf group.
Montealegre, in a television interview, said she came over to identify the Abu Sayyaf suspects in order to prove that those arrested were the same group who abducted them in Dos Palmas.
Kosovo was reportedly the one who buried Sobero after he was beheaded.
One of the witnesses, Buddy Recio, an information officer at the Department of Tourism (DOT) who claims to have been detained for at least two months, said he and the other witnesses came out after Padilla appeared in a pro-Muslim rights rally in Quezon City Monday night.
Recio said Padilla himself should have recognized at least two of the six Abu Sayyaf suspects presented early this week by police and military officials, since the two were among those who met Padilla when he went to negotiate with them four years ago.
Padilla negotiated with the hostage-takers at the request of the renegade group's leaders at the time but failed to produce results.
"Considering Robin Padilla's comment, he should know Kosovo because he went up there eh, he went up there during the Bolobo incident involving children and priests. He went up there so he should know Kosovo and probably Hanifah," Recio said Tuesday.
"I do not understand it, we are pretty hurt because he is belittling efforts to stop terrorists. It's not that easy to identity them you know. Not that easy. Kosovo even shaved off his hair," he added.
Asked whether the witnesses were shown photographs of the accused before they were allowed to identify them in a police lineup, Jalandoni said the witnesses came out after reading "news report" on the six Abu Sayyaf suspects' capture.
Only two
Of the six suspected Abu Sayyaf bandits arrested, the photographs of Walter Ancheta Villanueva and Marvin Vincent Benco Rueca were not identified by any of the former kidnap victims.
The Abu Sayyaf, a small group of Moro guerrillas waging a bombing and kidnapping campaign in the South for a decade, have been linked by the United States and Filipino governments to the Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah groups behind the World Trade Center and Bali bomb attacks.
"They were caught in possession of these TNT so they were charged with illegal possession of explosives," said Director Roberto Delfin, the national police intelligence chief.
Some of the six suspects also have arrest warrants against them for previous kidnappings in Basilan, Delfin said.
President Arroyo announced the foiled "Madrid-level" attack in Metro Manila Wednesday last week with the arrest of four suspected Abu Sayyaf members found in possession of a cache of explosives.
The explosive cache "was intended to be used for bombing (shopping) malls and trains in Metropolitan Manila," she said, adding that the four members of the Abu Sayyaf militant group are in government custody.
Security officials later said the suspects were arrested in raids in the suburbs of Manila. They apparently relocated to the capital from their old haunts in Mindanao after the government cracked down on kidnappings there.
Those arrested claimed to be behind an explosion that caused a fire on Superferry 14 in Manila bay last month, killing over 100 people.
The government previously doubted Abu Sayyaf claims they were behind the ferry incident but Arroyo said she was ordering new investigations. (Sunnex/AFP)
(April 7, 2004 issue)
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