ZAMBOANGA CITY, 5 February 2004 — Authorities detained a Pakistani national after he was arrested in the southern town of Mapun near Borneo island, officials said yesterday.
Officials said the 25-year-old Muhammad Mubashir Khan was arrested Monday after coast guard and naval forces traced him down in Mapun, a small island off Tawi-Tawi province.
Khan admitted illegally entering the southern Philippines from Sandakan in December last year and then sneaked into Mapun town on a Filipino fishing boat Jamila on Jan. 31, where he was arrested two days later after villagers tipped off the military about a “suspicios foreigner,” a military spokesman Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero said.
“Civilians reported to the authorities the presence of a suspicios foreigner in Mapun and there was this Pakistani national Muhammad Khan,” Lucero told reporters.
Lucero said the foreigner told interrogators that he was invited by his Filipino girlfriend Ruth Atendido to visit her in Cavite City outside Manila. The military said Khan is holding a Pakistani passport.
