ZAMBOANGA CITY, 18 July 2003 — A man claiming to be a leader of the Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf linked yesterday one of the Philippines’ top police official in the escape of Indonesian terrorist from a prison facility in Manila.

Abu Solaiman phoned the Radio Mindanao Network (RMN) to say that self-confessed Jemaah Islamiyah bomber Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi was allegedly freed by Philippine National Police (PNP) deputy chief for operations Virtus Gil in exchange for $10 million.

Gil has strongly denied the accusation and said he is willing to undergo polygraph test. “That’s not true,” Gil was quoted by reporters as saying in Manila.

Al-Ghozi, who confessed to being a member of the Al-Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group, escaped along with two Abu Sayyaf rebels Abdulmukim Edris and Omar Kasak before dawn Monday and police investigators suspected that the trio were freed in exchange for money.

Abu Solaiman is one of five rebel leaders hunted by the United States for the killing of two American hostages in the southern Philippines last year.

He said Al-Ghozi — who was sentenced to 17 years in jail in the Philippines in connection with the series of bombings in December 2000 that killed 22 people in Manila — was handed to the militant group Al-Rahman in Indonesia and is now in Jakarta.

The Philippine government said it was checking the report. The comments by Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes came as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo vowed to stamp out corruption in the police, saying that was most probably how Al-Ghozi was able to escape. Reyes also said he was checking with Indonesian officials whether Al-Ghozi had reached Jakarta.

Separately, Arroyo ordered National Police Chief Hermogenes Ebdane to solve corruption in the police force once and for all because it was “highly probable” that this was behind the escape of prominent detainees over the past year. In June last year, the leader of a local kidnap-for-ransom gang and two of his followers escaped from the national police headquarters.

“I call on the entire PNP leadership to shape up or ship out, and I will not hesitate to undertake a top-to-bottom revamp if no results are forthcoming,” she said.

Police have recommended that four prison officers be charged with negligence over Al-Ghozi’s escape and has offered a five-million peso ($93,000) bounty for his recapture, dead or alive.