17 terror suspects entered RP

At least 17 suspected terrorists tried to enter the Philippines using stolen European passports weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the US, immigration officials said yesterday.

Immigration authorities at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) said the suspected terrorists could be part of the group responsible for the suicide plane attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC.

Immigration officials also raised "strong suspicion" the 17 terrorists, who were prevented from entering the country, were on a mission to attack US interests here, particularly the US Embassy.

Two of the 17 suspected terrorists, senior immigration intelligence officers Crescencio Ablan and Rudy David said in a report, used tampered Canadian and Greek travel documents.

The two, who arrived on Sept. 1 on board a Malaysian Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur, presented passports under the name of Frederick Levasque and Panagiotis Chatczigeorgiou but authorities later learned they were actually Iranian nationals.

According to Ablan and David, "Levasque" and "Chatczigeorgiou" used stolen airline tickets which Malaysian Airlines originally issued to two infants.

"The two were wearing sporty attire, colored hair, blue contact lenses to disguise themselves as Europeans," Ablan and David said in their report to Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo.

"The intelligence community has already alerted the Bureau of Immigration on the arrival of suspected terrorists from the Middle East using the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand as transit points," their report read.

The report identified the 15 others as Ahmed Zulfiqar, 41; Shahid Jobl, 32; Alrezi Hamidi, 20; Sadeg Salimi, 31, Baghande Majid, 31; Reza Janmalekidecha, 30; Romatollah H., 30; Davood Moghaddam; Habid Ardalani; Abolfazl Nakafisomeeh; Ghasem Dabirian; Nader Yosefian; Mahdi Ebrahim Nejad Kival; Ebrahim Shamasbi; and Enshalah Rezael.