MANILA, 3 July 2003 — A suspected Muslim militant linked to bombings in Manila in December 2000 told a court yesterday he would rather die by firing squad than go to jail.
Hadji Mokhlis Yunos broke down in tears when prosecutors showed him photographs of the more than 20 people killed in the bombing of a train and other attacks he is accused of planning.
“I cry every time I see it,” Yunos, who wore orange prison garb, said at the preliminary hearing after looking at the photos.
Yunos has also confessed to membership in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but the separatist group has disowned him. According to the military, Yunos was the leader of a special operations unit of the MILF engaged in terrorist attacks.
The Philippine government and the MILF are currently preparing to resume stalled peace talks after the rebel group’s chairman renounced terrorism and denied any links to local, regional and international terrorist groups.
Also at the hearing was self-confessed Jemaah Islamiah member Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, an Indonesian linked to the attacks in Manila. He is serving a 17-year term in a Philippine prison for illegal possession of explosives and falsifying travel documents.
Yunos, 31, said he carried out the Light Rail Transit (LRT) car in Manila on Dec. 30, 2000, in retaliation against a military attack on the MILF’s Camp Sarmiento in Mindanao that he said had “killed more than 1,000 people.”
The rebel camp, in Matanog town in the province of Maguindanao, fell to government forces on May 31, 2000.
“For us Muslims who committed wrong, we should get the firing squad so that we would no longer think (of what we did),” Yunos told reporters in halting Filipino.
Yunos spoke mostly in his native Maranao dialect, and his words had to be translated by National Bureau of Investigation interpreter Onos Mangotara for the Justice Department panel.
Yunos said he had a wife and family in Mindanao but “they don’t understand us who undertake jihad (holy war).”
“I admit that that I was mistaken and yes, I ask for forgiveness” from the victim’s families, Yunos said.
Asked what he wanted to say to them, Yunos said: “I can’t say anything because I’m not rich. If I were rich, I would give money. I can’t bring them back.”
His accomplice, Al-Ghozi, stared at him, somewhat bewildered, as Yunos wept while looking at pictures of the bombing victims.
Yunos has been charged with multiple murder, multiple frustrated murder, and multiple attempted murder in the Manila Regional Trial Court.
Al-Ghozi, who also admitted to planning and carrying out the bombing blitz, may be charged next week with the same crimes. He submitted yesterday a supplementary sworn statement affirming his earlier statements and Yunos’ confession that they planned the bombing.
Al-Ghozi was convicted last year on charges of illegal possession of explosives and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Yunos denied at the hearing that an MILF commander ordered him to wage a terror campaign in Metro Manila. He said only he and Al-Ghozi did the planning.
Yunos admitted that the MILF had ordered him to bomb a transmission line of the National Power Corp. in March.
Yunos was arrested in May.
State prosecutor Peter Ong, who conducted the hearing, said he would stick with the written sworn statement that Yunos had earlier submitted, in which Yunos said he was a member of the MILF’s Special Operations Group.
Ong said Yunos also claimed that Alim Pangalian Solaiman, his alleged superior in the MILF Third Field Division, had given him a “direct order” to proceed with the Metro Manila bombings.
Solaiman allegedly said the order came from MILF chief Salamat Hashim.
“I don’t think he can deny what he has signed and submitted before me,” Ong said. “Anyway, that’s the only thing that is a bit inconsistent right now. He still admitted that he is part of the planning of the Dec. 30 bombings.”
“I think Muklis (Yunos) even admitted in his sworn statement that he conducted reconnaissance operations at the NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport), US Embassy, and I think somewhere in Makati, then Cavite,” Ong added.
