DOJ to expose terrorists’ financiers, media handlers

The Department of Justice (DOJ) now has in its custody a witness who can identify the legal advisers and media handlers of the terrorist groups Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM) and the Abu Sayyaf, including details of their bombing plans.

Senior State Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco said the new witness is a member of the RSM.

"We have a new state witness who will directly link the Santos brothers and the others to bombings," Velasco said, referring to captured RSM founder Hilarion del Rosario Santos III and Abu Hamid Al-Luzoni, also known as Hannah Santos.

The DOJ filed rebellion charges against them before the Makati City prosecutor’s office last week along with six other suspects who were arrested by combined military and police personnel in Zamboanga City.

Also charged were Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani, Jainal Sali who is also known as Abu Solaiman, a certain Police Officer 3 San Amdal, Khalil Pareja, Pio de Vera, Abdul Kareem Ayeras, Omar Lavilla, Mike Rueca and Ashty Dan.

The case stemmed from the bombing of a passenger bus in Makati on Valentine’s Day this year in which four people were killed and several others wounded.

On the other hand, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales disclosed Santos has been threatening to launch an attack in Metro Manila even while in detention.

"(He) really confirmed (that his group) had plans for Manila," Gonzales said.

"He said it doesn’t matter that he is under arrest, ‘anyway something will happen in Manila,’" Gonzales said, quoting Santos.

"Actually he was threatening. With that kind of thinking, we cannot just ignore the threat," he said.

Gonzales said authorities were still uncertain what type of attacks would be carried out by the RSM or when.

"The important thing is we have to be vigilant and careful. We have nothing to lose if we are careful," he said.

Armed Forces deputy chief for intelligence Rear Adm. Tirso Danga cited a report last week disclosing the RSM had been planning attacks.

Danga said a few weeks before his capture, Santos was with Janjalani and Umar Patek, an Malaysian member of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network and a key suspect in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people in Indonesia.

The RSM is composed mostly of Christians who have converted to Islam. The group is believed to have forged an alliance with the Abu Sayyaf and the JI, intelligence officials said.

The military has linked the RSM to the SuperFerry 14 firebombing attack last year that killed more than hundred people, and a string of bombs on Feb. 14 this year that killed at least seven people and injured more than 60 in Makati City and the southern cities of Davao and General Santos.

In the absence of bombing materials, the Abu Sayyaf still has "a lot of access to assault weapons," including hand grenades, that could be used in a suicide attack in crowded places, Gonzales warned.

"What we are looking for now is suicide terrorists, not suicide bombers," he said. "Can you imagine - before you kill him, how many (ammunition) magazines he would have been able to use up?"

Velasco, on the other hand, claimed the witness had surrendered to the police and expressed his willingness to detail the plans of both terror groups to carry out bombing attacks in Metro Manila.

"He (witness) surrendered to authorities last week. With his testimony, we now have an airtight case," Velasco said.

Velasco claimed the new witness has provided the DOJ with explosive information on who had been helping the RSM and the Abu Sayyaf to evade prosecution.

The witness also identified a "media adviser" trying to project an image "to make the government look like the oppressor."

"This media adviser even facilitates interviews," Velasco told The STAR believing that the information they now have will convict all those who had been already charged and those yet to be charged in court.

According to Velasco, the new witness "has been bothered by his conscience" in carrying out terror activities "in the name of Allah."

Velasco was the main prosecutor in the bombing case that sentenced to death a JI militant and two Abu Sayyaf bandits in the Valentine’s Day bombings.

Indonesian national Rohmat Abdurrohim and Abu Sayyaf members Abu Khalil Trinidad and Gammal Baharan were sentenced to death by a Makati court last week after finding them guilty of multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder charges.

The court had considered the testimony of Abu Sayyaf member Gappal Bannah Asali, alias Boy Negro, who later turned state witness against the three convicts.

Asali claimed he turned state witness because "my conscience bothered me after so many innocent people were killed."

Velasco said Asali will be used by the government as a state witness, along with the new witness, against the RSM and the Abu Sayyaf. - With AP