RP wants Hambali tried for Rizal Day blasts

Suspected al-Qaeda kingpin Hambali should stand trial in the Philippines for plotting a Light Railway Transit bombing that left 22 dead in December 2000, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin said yesterday.

Manila has sent a formal request for the US government to be allowed access to the Indonesian militant, also known as Riduan Isamuddin, who is in US custody at an undisclosed place.

Philippine security officials have also impressed on the US government that Hambali should be tried in Manila, Ebdalin told reporters. The two countries have an extradition treaty.

Washington has yet to send a formal reply, he said, stressing that President Arroyo’s government was hopeful the request would be granted.

"We hope that they will accede to the request," Ebdalin said. "There is a case filed against him here. Our criminal law requires that the (accused) must be personally present. He has to be tried and convicted here."

"We have made the request that after the US is through with him, if they would give that person to us, for us to be given the chance to try him for the crimes he committed here," he said.

Hambali was arrested in Thailand earlier this month and has been held in US custody. He has been described as a key ally of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the former operations chief of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network.

The 39-year-old Islamic scholar is also the accused mastermind of the Bali bombings that killed 202 people last year.

Philippine police said Hambali financed the 2000 Philippines attack, which was carried out by another JI member, Indonesian Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, and a Filipino Muslim separatist.

Al-Ghozi has been convicted for explosives possession, but escaped from the national police jail last month.

Ebdalin said all Philippine embassies in region have been placed on alert for possible terrorist attacks, noting that the JI has an extensive network in Southeast Asia.

"We don’t know when and where they’re going to strike. In fact here we are not safe, that is why all these precautions are being put in place," he said. — AFP