COTABATO CITY, 21 June 2003 — An official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) complained of a “frame up” yesterday after police charged five Indonesians were caught while allegedly on a bombing mission in the southern Philippines.
“They were just innocent civilian victims of a police frame up,” MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said.
He said the arresting officers just “wanted to get credits at the expense of innocent people.”
A lawyer for five Indonesians arrested on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack claimed Friday the men had been set up, possibly by a real terrorist.
Police on Thursday charged three of the suspects who were arrested on Tuesday at a bus terminal in southern city of General Santos, carrying a leather bag with three improvised bombs. Police said the two others were picked up the same day.
The military chief of staff, Gen. Narciso Abaya, said authorities were trying to determine whether the suspects were linked to the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiyah.
Lawyer Raul Tolentino rejected the terrorist link, claiming that four of the men are Christians and only one is a Muslim.
Tolentino described the men as “naive and innocent,” and said they were lured by an unidentified man who claimed he was recruiting Indonesian fishermen, but that he may have set them up as fall guys for a bombing attempt.
Tolentino said the “recruiter” refused to identify himself to the Indonesians. He told the suspects that his job recruitment company had an office at the bus station, Tolentino said, adding that investigators found no such office.
Tolentino said the man invited the Indonesians for lunch at the bus station, but sat at a different table. Shortly afterward, an unidentified woman left a brown bag on her seat. The man then excused himself, saying he was going to the toilet, but moved the bag closer to the Indonesians before leaving the eatery at the bus terminal, Tolentino said.
Moments later, police arrived and arrested the men, he said.
“If the police would dig deeper, they would be able to find out that these boys were just used in a diabolical plan to probably maim people” at the bus terminal, which was bustling with a noontime crowd at the time, he told The Associated Press.
Court officials said the judge has issued arrest warrants for the five men, legalizing their continued detention at the local city jail. The city prosecutor will review the evidence against the men to determine whether there is enough for an indictment with the Regional Trial Court, which tries such cases.
The suspects were identified as Allan Panggilawan, 19; Charlito Panggilawan, 18; Justinus Barahama, 18; Junmar Pareda, said to be in his 20s; and a 16-year-old minor.
Tolentino said an official of the Indonesian Consulate, which hired him, accompanied him when he interviewed the men on Thursday.
Kabalu yesterday also complained about the government’s “unbelievable insistence” on linking the MILF to terrorist groups.
He said the government’s insistence was due to its reluctance to pursue peace in Mindanao. “We have not raised any preconditions to resuming the peace talks. We have shown our desire to continue the stalled negotiations, yet the government appears to be reluctant,” he said.
Kabalu believes the government is trying to delay the peace talks to allow military operations against ranking MILF leaders to continue.
The group’s leaders, including Salamat Hashim, Murad Ebrahim, Ghazali Jaafar and Kabalu himself, have million-peso bounties on their heads and have been the object of a hunt for their alleged involvement in recent bombings and other terrorist attacks in Mindanao which targeted civilians.
Kabalu said the government is trying to discredit the current MILF peace panel in an attempt to render all previous agreements forged invalid and ineffective.
“Very obviously, one of the motives of the government is to discredit Brother Murad and all the previous agreements signed in Malaysia and Libya,” he said.
Kabalu warned that unless the government set aside its preconditions, the peace talks could not move forward.
