Arrested Indons not terrorists, but are seajackers, says Gador

A senior liaison officer of Indonesian embassy based in Manila confirmed that the dead man, who was brought out of a hotel by a group of Indonesians, was one of their own and not a Filipino as they claimed. The dead person, who was earlier identified as Francisco Vidal, turned out to be Johanon Taruc, not a Filipino but an Indonesian.

S/Supt. Bambang Usadi of the Republic of Indonesia identified the fatality when he came at the Cebu City Police Office the other night.

The police arrested Indonesians - Bernard Labene, and Oscar Dalege - over the weekend after they brought out the body of their companion from the hotel where they stayed at in barangay Guadalupe. The two men, along with eight other companions who the police are now also looking for, brought Taruc's body to the Cebu Memorial Funeral Parlor along Tres de Abril st. without notifying authorities of medical personnel about the death. They were also the ones who told the staff of the funeral parlor that the man was a certain Francisco Vidal.

Both Labene and Dalege is now under police custody and cannot yet released the two as no one has come to vouch for their identities and there is no record of their entry into the country with the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation.

In a television interview, Police Regional Office-7 director C/Supt. Eduardo Gador revealed that the said persons were seajackers or pirates and are not in the police watchlist of terrorists. He said that the modus operandi of the group that they would hijack ships from Indonesia then they will sell them in different places around the Southeast Asian region.

Reportedly, there are two ships - TB Martha Dini and tugboat TK Sintana V - that left at the Dilawan Port, Nedan, North Sumatra, Indonesia last April 13 bound for Batu Liten, Port of Kalimantan, Indonesia, said Sr. Supt Carmelo Valmoria, Deputy Director for Operations of PRO-7. The PRO-7 chief said that the ships that were hijacked by the group are somewhere in Negros now.

The police are still conducting operations to put a close to this case that has raised the terrorism alarm in Cebu as several officials suspected that the Indonesians, who claimed to be here as tourists, simply did not seem like such. - Norvie S. Misa