MANILA, 16 July 2003 — Embarrassed by the escape of a confessed terror-bomber Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi from a maximum-security prison, authorities yesterday offered a five-million-peso ($93,000) bounty for his recapture, alive or dead.

Interior Secretary Jose Lina said the government has also put up a two-million-peso bounty for Abdulmukim Edris and one million pesos for Omar Opik Kasak, suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf kidnap gang, who fled with Al-Ghozi.

The three prisoners, all linked to worldwide movement of Muslim militants, escaped from their tightly guarded cell at the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Manila before sunrise on Monday.

Investigators suspect that there was a connivance by jail guards in Al-Ghozi’s escape. At least 3 guards and three senior police officials were relieved of their posts on Monday and are currently being investigated.

President Gloria Arroyo, who was meeting with Australian Prime Minister John Howard in Manila when news of the jailbreak broke out, has ordered the filing of criminal charges against police involved “up to the highest level of command responsibility possible” and the creation of a single, maximum-security jail for high-profile prisoners.

“Camp Crame is gaining notoriety for its very porous detention centers, and it is becoming hard to believe that these escapes of heinous criminals are the result of ordinary laxity,” she said in a statement. “We must pin the culprits down and find a permanent solution to this problem.”

National police chief Hermogenes Ebdane said yesterday he has issued a shoot-to-kill order against Al-Ghozi, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the December 2000 bombings in metropolitan Manila that killed 22 people and injured more than 100 others. Ebdane told reporters he would be satisfied to recover Al-Ghozi, “even if he is dead and torn to pieces.”

“If you have a gun and see Al-Ghozi, shoot him,” Ebdane told reporters in Manila. “I personally think money changed hands one way or the other.”

Critics urged Ebdane to resign as a result of the escape but rejected the suggestion, saying that “resignation is not the solution. I must face the problem squarely.”

But he added that his fate was up to the decision of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. But first, he said he would attend to his duty.

The military said it has alerted its forces and intelligence units to join police in what had been described as the biggest manhunt in the country’s history.

In the southern Philippines, police have stepped up security and a heightened alert, said Chief Supt. Acmad Omar, police head in the Muslim autonomous region.

“The terrorists may return in the south and that’s why we have alerted our forces. Citizens are also urged to report to us any sightings of the terrorists,” Omar told the Arab News. “We have intensified intelligence efforts.”

Security forces in the rest of Southeast Asia have also announced that they were on the lookout for Al-Ghozi, described as the chief bomb-maker of the radical Jemaah Islamiah network.

Indonesian police said they were on the alert in case Al-Ghozi attempted to reach his home town, Madiun in East Java.

“All entry points that he may use to enter Indonesia have been alerted, including airports,” said Indonesia’s top detective Erwin Mappaseng.

Al-Ghozi, captured by the police and military in 2002, has confessed to the series of bombings in Manila in 2000. He said the attacks were retaliation against an “all-out war” launched by the military against the separatist rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Al-Ghozi’s arrest also yielded more than a ton of explosives in his apartment in the southern port city of General Santos.

Philippine authorities have linked Al-Ghozi to the MILF, but rebel leaders strongly denied any connection with the foreigner.

Howard, who was in Manila as part of a three-nation tour of Asia to increase cooperation in anti-terrorism measures, said the escape was “a serious setback” to the anti-terror effort. He said October’s bombing in the Indonesian resort of Bali, which killed 202 people, many of them Australian, and attacks elsewhere in Indonesia and the Philippines showed “that the threat from Jemaah Islamiah and other terrorist groups remains extremely high.”

“The investigation revealed that Jemaah Islamiah’s network is more extensive than first thought,” Howard said in a speech.

“The JI and other groups are still likely to have capacity to mount further terrorist attacks...We continue to receive reports of terrorist planning in the region.”