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Thursday, February 24, 2005
Charges filed against Makati bus 'bombers'
MANILA -- Charges were filed Wednesday against two men accused of involvement in near-simultaneous bombings in the cities of Makati, Davao, and General Santos that killed eight people and wounded more than 120 others.
A criminal complaint for multiple murder, multiple frustrated murder and illegal possession of explosives was submitted to the justice department against Gamal Baharan and Abu Khalil Trinidad.
A government prosecutor will determine if there is enough evidence to bring charges against the suspects before the courts.
Deputy military chief of staff Lieutenant General Edilberto Adan said Baharan and Trinidad are being charged for their involvement in the Makati financial district incident, which killed four people and which occurred during the early evening rush hour on Feb. 14.
They are believed to be members of the extremist Abu Sayyaf group, which also set off a bomb at a bus terminal in southern Davao city that killed a boy and another that killed three in General Santos City, Adan said Tuesday after Baharan and Trinidad were arrested in a Manila suburb.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's spokesman praised authorities for the arrest of the two suspects and urged citizens to help in the fight against terrorism.
Police are still going after three others in connection with the Makati bombing, said Metropolitan Manila Police Director Avelino Razon.
One of those still being hunted down by police is a certain Boy Negro, who allegedly gave the bomb to the nabbed suspects.
State prosecutor Manny Velasco said there is an arrest warrant for Baharan for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of Western tourists from the Malaysian resort of Sipadan near Mindanao in April 2000. Velasco said two former Abu Sayyaf members claim both men were involved in the abductions.
Anti-terrorism Task Force agents led by lawyer Serme Ayuyao brought Baharan and Trinidad before Velasco Wednesday for the filing of the charges.
Two witnesses to the incident, one of them identified as Wilfredo Rosarito, were also presented. Rosarito is a relative of one of those who died in the bombing attack.
The other witness, who wore a cap and covered his face with a handkerchief, was a bus conductor who said he saw the Baharan and Trinidad board the bus at the Edsa-Shaw Boulevard intersection and then hurriedly disembarked at the MRT-Ayala Station in Makati City.
Shortly afterwards, the bomb exploded.
Velasco asked the task force to provide the two with lawyers so they could answer the charges against them in 10 days.
Adan said the two men were arrested after a weeklong surveillance following a tip.
"This shows what an actively vigilant public, working with the military and the police, can do," Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said in a statement. "It also shows that terrorists cannot hide for long and operate with impunity anywhere in the country."
Adan said the two men claimed Abu Solaiman, a senior leader of the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group, "tasked" them to conduct the bus bombing.
They also said Solaiman, Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and Zacky, an Indonesian member of the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, were responsible for the bombings in Davao and General Santos.
Solaiman called a radio station to claim responsibility for the nearly simultaneous bombings.
Adan said the al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah was "indirectly" involved in the Valentine's Day bombings: One of its operatives provided training to the two men in a camp in the southern Philippine province of Lanao del Sur early last year. (AP/Sunnex Luzon)
(February 24, 2005 issue)
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