MANILA, 26 July 2003 — Not only was the gate of his police prison cell defective, the prisoner had a cellular phone through which he allegedly received instructions for his escape.

Indonesian terrorist Fathur Roman Al-Ghozi bought his cell phone while he was confined in a supposedly highly secured jail in the Camp Crame police general headquarters in the middle of Metro Manila.

This was revealed to the Inquirer by a top-ranking official, who added that Al-Ghozi got his cell phone from Abu Ali, a former member of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group who was out on bail and employed by the Philippine National Police as a “utility man.”

“As of 5 p.m. Monday, the phone emitted signals from Tawi-Tawi,” a Muslim-populated southern province in Mindanao, the source said.

Abu Ali reportedly had turned over Al-Ghozi’s SIM card to investigators.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Al-Ghozi — the self-confessed member and bomb expert of the Al-Qaeda-linked militant network Jemaah Islamiya — exchanged his SIM card with that of Abu Ali shortly before he escaped on July 14 with two other suspected terrorists from the police Intelligence Group compound in Camp Crame.

Through his phone, Al-Ghozi was in constant touch with his unknown supporters before and after his escape, the official told the Inquirer. Police officials said they believed Al-Ghozi was still in the country, maybe in Mindanao, trying to flee through the country’s southern backdoor.

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Hermogenes Ebdane, whom President Gloria Arroyo has tasked to head the manhunt for Al-Ghozi, made an unannounced visit to southern Mindanao on Thursday, which fueled rumors that Al-Ghozi was in the area, where he is believed to have links with Muslim separatist rebels.

The rumors followed a statement of Foreign Secretary Blas Ople in Bali, Indonesia, earlier this week that a police general had informed him that police expected to recapture Al-Ghozi in three days. He told reporters in the town of Alabelin in Saranggani province that he believed Al-Ghozi had not yet left the Philippines but denied the rumors, saying the police were still trying to establish Al-Ghozi’s whereabouts.

Al-Ghozi was arrested in Manila with a large cache of explosives in a Muslim-populated area in the Quiapo district, which he said were meant to bomb the US embassy in Singapore and other Western targets there. He also confessed to rigging several bombs that killed 22 people in a carriage of the Light Rail Transit in Manila on Dec. 30, 2000.

Earlier, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) announced that Al-Ghozi had been sighted in Mindanao’s Lanao provinces.

MILF political affairs chief Ghazali Jaafar said, “We are trying to verify all information. If our forces catch him, we will immediately turn him over to the government as a confidence building measure in connection with the peace process.”

President Arroyo urged anyone with information on Al-Ghozi’s whereabouts to come forward, saying it was “a matter that is important to our national security and to the safety and well-being of every Filipino and other citizens of the world.”

Sighted in 6 places

Ebdane said the police were carefully sifting through information they had received since Al-Ghozi’s escape. He said there were even reports of sightings of Al-Ghozi in at least six different places at the same time.

Ebdane said his visit to southern Mindanao was related to police projects in the area. He was noted to have held, however, a closed-door meeting with central Mindanao regional police director Manuel Raval and Sarangani provincial police chief Willie Dangane.

Raval and Dangane were elusive when asked by reporters for the details of their meeting with Ebdane.

Credibility problem

In Cotabato City, an influential Muslim leader said politics and corruption were playing a key role in the police’s credibility problem.

Mohammad Adil, a retired major of the defunct Philippine Constabulary, said that in the past “it was with pride and honor to be identified with the constabulary. “Now, it is humiliating to be known as a police officer,” he said.

The bemedalled Adil was instrumental in breaking the backbone of piracy and smuggling in the Sulu Sea during the early 1950s, when he was constabulary company commander.