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Monday, November 07, 2005
Nabbed man not Sayyaf leader Sahiron: police
MANILA -- National Police Chief Arturo Lomibao said Sunday the alleged bandit leader they arrested Saturday in the village of Kitabog in Zamboanga Sibugay was just a "look-alike" of Abu Sayyaf chief of staff Radullan Sahiron.
In a press conference at the police headquarters Camp Crame in Quezon City Sunday afternoon, Lomibao apologized for the "unintentional lapse" in the capture of a man who was mistaken for Sahiron.
He said the Abu Sayyaf leader's look-alike, whom he refused to identify, was already released.
Lomibao had flown to Zamboanga Sibugay earlier Sunday bringing with him someone who could identify if the prisoner was really Sahiron. He was not.
The person with Lomibao said Sahiron only has one arm unlike the one who was arrested.
"We made an announcement last night (Saturday night) that we got him. We got one all right, but (it was) only a look-like. We apologize for the unintentional lapse," said police spokesman Leopoldo Bataoil.
Lomibao said they have corrected their mistake and the person they arrested was brought back to his family. "We assure everyone that his rights were not violated."
President Gloria Arroyo on Saturday lauded security forces for arresting Sahiron, who has a five-million-peso bounty on his head.
"I would like to commend our police and soldiers because at 4:30 p.m., they caught the notorious Abu Sayyaf leader Radulan Sahiron, who has five million pesos on his head," she had said on television.
Her spokesman Ignacio Bunye said on Sunday that the President accepted the police's explanation about the wrong arrest and had withdrawn her earlier statement on the matter.
National police chief Lomibao said they will not the setback deter them from pursuing the fight against terrorism.
He said the government is waging a war against terrorism and "we assure every Filipino that your government is utilizing all its assets to cripple the enemy."
A composite police team composed of members of the elite Special Action Force (SAF) and intelligence agents arrested the man earlier believed to be Sahiron.
Local police and military officials were unaware of the capture and only learned about it on television on Saturday.
Sahiron is wanted both by the Philippines and United States for the series of terrorism and kidnappings in the southern Philippines.
Previous military reports claimed the one-armed Abu Sayyaf leader was hiding in the southern island of Jolo. Sahiron, a former commander of the Moro National Liberation Front, lost his right arm at the height of the secessionist rebellion in the 1970s in Jolo.
He joined the Abu Sayyaf in the late 1990s, and became one of the group's top commander for Jolo.
The military tagged Sahiron as behind the series of attacks and killings in Jolo island, including the kidnappings of 21 mostly Asian and Western holiday-makers in a raid on the island resort of Sipadan, off Sabah, Malaysia, in 2001.
His group was implicated in the kidnappings of three Hong Kong and a Malaysian fishery workers off Jolo in 1998 and dozens of Filipino missionaries on the island.
Washington also put up a $5 million bounty for Sahiron's capture.
Security officials described Sahiron as a notorious Abu Sayyaf leader, who often travels in Jolo's dense jungle astride on a horse--a rifle on his left side and a pistol on the other.
Locals call him Robin Hood because he often distributes shares of his loot with civilian supporters in Jolo.
But for security officials, Sahiron was Satan himself.
He allegedly chopped off heads of soldiers captured in battle and kidnapped and decapitated civilians suspected of aiding the military in the anti-insurgency operation in Jolo.
Washington listed the Abu Sayyaf as foreign terrorist organization and offered as much as $10 million bounty for the capture of its chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani. (JFF/JMR/Sun.Star Zamboanga/Sunnex)
(November 7, 2005 issue)
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