While military authorities claim they have arrested Al-Ghazie, suspected mastermind of last month’s deadly bombing in General Santos City, police maintain he is still at large.
The confusion worsened as two men who introduced themselves as Al-Ghazie separately called up Radio Mindanao Network (RMN)’s stations in General Santos and Zamboanga City to say the suspect is still free and the authorities got the wrong man.
Officials of the Armed Forces’ Southern Command (Southcom) based in Zamboanga City asserted that they have captured Al-Ghazie, who earlier called up RMN to claim responsibility for the April 21 bomb blast that ripped through the Fitmart shopping mall in General Santos, killing at least 15 people and injuring some 50 others.
Southcom deputy spokesman Capt. Noel Detoyato seemed certain that one of four men caught the other day in a police-military dragnet in Cotabato City was Al-Ghazie, saying the suspect’s real name is Junior "JR" Jikiron.
But Central Mindanao police director Senior Superintendent Bartolome Baluyot insisted that Al-Ghazie is still at large. Ba-luyot also claimed that Al-Ghazie’s real name is Abdulatip Adsoy Paglala, a man who eluded a police raid in Tacurong City on Wednesday.
"The real Abu Muslim is Paglala and he is the one we are chasing," Baluyot said.
Amid the debate, Armed Forces chief Gen. Diomedio Villanueva appeared non-committal. Asked by reporters, Villanueva simply said he had received reports of Al-Ghazie’s arrest.
The military withheld the names of the three other suspects pending completion of tactical interrogation.
Detoyato said the voice of the new caller in Zamboanga was different from the voice in the military’s tape recordings of previous Al-Ghazie interviews.
"Anybody can call up a radio station and say he is Abu Muslim, but we cannot swallow everything he says," Detoyato said. "However, we cannot close the door to further investigation."
Detoyato also pointed out that the raiders confiscated documents indicating that Jikiron and Al-Ghazie are one and the same person.
At Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City, Armed Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Jose Mabanta backed Detoyato’s statement.
"We have reason to believe that one of the four (men) we arrested was the one using the name Al-Ghazie," Mabanta told reporters. "We have enough evidence – documents and materials – that would indicate that it was him."
Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman for the unit holding Jikiron, was also certain that they have the real Al-Ghazie.
"We are sure that this Jay-ar is the real Abu Muslim (Al-Ghazie). We have witnesses who have identified him as the real Abu Muslim. We have evidence to back up our claims that he is the real Abu Muslim," Ando stressed.
In his report to Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Leandro Mendoza, Baluyot said his men raided Al-Ghazie’s hideout in Tacurong Wednesday afternoon, but the suspect escaped.
The raiders arrested Paglala’s wife Bai Hayaran Paglala, 42, and four other occupants of the house identified as Bai Banal Otto, 35, John Macampao, 29, Romy Kasin Otto, 25, and Bernard Balino, 37.
The operatives confiscated from the place an M-16 Armalite rifle and 200 bullets, an M-79 grenade launcher with six grenade cartridges, a home-made shotgun with six cartridges, a rifle grenade, two motorcycles, a white Kia Pride sedan, a portable typewriter and several documents of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
"The raiding team also found a laminated MNLF document on Paglala’s appointment as battalion commander of the MNLF National Security Command," the report said.
Police have tagged Abu Muslim as a "notorious bandit leader" engaged in extortion in Central Mindanao.
A number of business establishments in Mindanao have reportedly received extortion letters from Abu Muslim, threatening them with bomb attacks unless they pay protection money.
Earlier reports had it that Jikiron and three of his aides were captured the other day in Cotabato City while they were withdrawing money from a local bank.
The three other suspects were identified as Arman Amerodin, 16; his and brother Jayhan, 15; and Khalid Mapandi, 17.
The four were presented to reporters yesterday at Camp Siongco in Maguindanao by Villanueva and Maj. Gen. Roy Kyamko, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division.
Kyamko said Jikiron, a 35-year-old Tausog, has admitted having links with Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadafy Janjalani
"There are persistent intelligence feedback reaching us that there are two terrorists, who could be comrades, using this alias and one of them is Jikiron," Kyamko said.
He said probers established that Jikiron’s bank account number as indicated in his automated teller machine card was identical to the account number he gave to the victims of his protection racket.
Jikiron’s cellular phone numbers also matched those taken from the caller identification devices of the traders his group called to demand payments.
"We also got from them certain documents indicating they have been receiving subsidy, maybe for food and mobility, from Janjalani," Kyamko said.
The captured suspects are currently in the custody of the PNP’s criminal investigation and detection group in Central Mindanao.
Baluyot said Al-Ghazie, a leader of the Abu Sayyaf’s special operations group, has owned up to the torching of Kimball Plaza and the KCC Shopping Center, in addition to the bomb blast in Fitmart.
Baluyot said they conducted the raid in Tacurong on the strength of a search warrant issued by Judge Francis Pamones of the Regional Trial Court Branch 20.
Al-Ghazie, who also uses the aliases Rizal Kitango and Commander Roldan, fled upon seeing the approaching raiders.
Baluyot said the raid was conducted following information given by Muhaliden Usman, one of three MNLF members arrested earlier in connection with the spate of bombings in Mindanao in May and June 2000.
Muhaliden, a brother of Basit Usman, was said to be Malaysian-trained MNLF bomb expert who engineered the series of bomb attacks in General Santos.
Baluyot said a picture of Al-Ghazie was found in Tacurong, along with the extortion letters.
In an interview aired live by DXRZ radio station in Zamboanga, the caller who introduced himself as Al-Ghazie, denied he has been arrested, and dared the military to arrest him and his group.
"I will assure them that 50 percent of their forces, once they engage us, will never come down (from the hills) alive," the caller said.
Baluyot said Abu Sayyaf leaders were seeking refuge in General Santos City and elsewhere to escape a joint Philippine-US counter-terrorism exercise on Basilan island.
Some 1,000 US forces are training their Filipino counterparts to fight the Abu Sayyaf terrorists, as well as develop infrastructure on the island.
The Abu Sayyaf has been holding American missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham and Filipino nurse Deborah Yap hostage on Basilan for nearly one year now. — With Christina Mendez, Paolo Romero, Jaime Laude, Roel Pareño