Terrorist suspect is Sabaya’s wife?

Police are looking into allegations that the mysterious woman arrested at the Manila Hotel late Friday on suspicion of being a terrorist is the wife of Abu Sabaya, spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf extremist group operating in Mindanao.

The investigators are also digging deeper into the possibility that the woman, identified as Violeta Malikdan, was on a mission to case potential terrorist targets in Metro Manila.

The suspect, who was apprehended at Room 801 of the hotel where she was reportedly staying for the past four months with no apparent official or business purpose, clammed up before her police interrogators.

"She kept her mouth shut," a police official who was part of the composite arresting team said.

"She even refused to answer questions regarding her personal data like her date of birth and address," he added.

The probers said they will endeavor to establish her link with Sabaya and the Abu Sayyaf terrorists who are still holding at least 18 hostages in the island province of Basilan.

Meanwhile, Malikdan was charged with possession of ammunition before the Manila Regional Trial Court which set her bail at P60,000.

The arresting officers said they confiscated from Malikdan nine bullets for a 9-mm. handgun, some $50,000 in cash and a map of Metro Manila with certain vital facilities encircled with red ink.

The marked structures were the American Embassy on Roxas Boulevard, a Caltex fuel depot in Pandacan, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in Malate and the Manila Hotel, raising suspicions by the police that these were potential targets of terrorist attacks.

Malikdan aroused the suspicion of hotel staffers because she stayed inside her room most of the time, even ordering food through room service and invariably paying her bills in dollars.

A source from the police intelligence community told The STAR that they were also focusing on the source of Malikdan’s dollars.

A number of foreign tourists seized by the Abu Sayyaf in the Malaysian plush resort of Sipadan in April last year and journalists covering the hostage drama in Sulu were released amid reports of hefty ransom payments, mostly in dollars.

"We firmly believe that the seized dollars were part of the ransom money of the Abu Sayyaf," the source said, adding that the suspect could have acted as the intermediary of the Abu Sayyaf with the relatives of their Filipino and foreign hostages in Manila.

Malikdan remained in the custody of the Western Police District, while other police and military units were awaiting their turn to interrogate her.

A police official said they would not give up until they are able to persuade Malikdan to cooperate and divulge vital information regarding the Abu Sayyaf group which is currently the object of an all-out military offensive in Mindanao in a bid to rescue the hostages.

Philippine and US officials have claimed that the Abu Sayyaf maintained links with Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, principal suspect in the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. — With Marichu Villanueva