Dulmatin’s wife deported soon

JOLO, Sulu — The wife of Asia’s most wanted terrorist will be turned over by the military to the Bureau of Immigration so she can be deported before Nov. 30.

Speaking to reporters after inspecting troops in Jolo, Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said Istiada B.T. Oemar Sovie, wife of Jemaah Islamiyah bomber Dulmatin, must be deported despite her appeal to be reunited with her four other children, who are still in Jolo.

"I don’t think it is a matter of Sovie’s agreeing to it (deportation)," he said.

"We simply have to implement the laws. It looks like the effort to look for the other four children is futile. We can’t hold on to her anymore. She has violated immigration laws."

However, Esperon said the military will try its best to find the four other children of Sovie, whom she claims to have brought with her when she slipped into the country.

"I really hope we could find the children," he said. "It is really hard for a mother to be separated from her children."

Sovie and her two sons –Edar and Alih, aged six and eight –are under military custody at Western Mindanao Command headquarters in Zamboanga City.

Sovie was arrested, along with her two sons in Patikul, Sulu last Oct. 3.

Indonesian Vice-Consul Bambang Gunawan said he will ask Filipino authorities to immediately deport Sovie and her two children, who are Indonesian nationals.

"We shall be asking Philippine authorities to allow her deportation to take place soon," he said.

Gunawan said there is a need to find the four other children of Sovie so that they could be deported with her.

"It is for humanitarian reasons that we ask that the four other children should also be found and for them to be deported together," he said.

Gunawan said the four missing children are under the care of a trusted ally of Dulmatin in the jungles of Patikul in Sulu.

Gunawan has expressed confidence that Indonesia’s request for the deportation of Sovie and her children will be granted since they have not been suspected as terrorists.

Dulmatin and his comrade, Umar Patek have been implicated in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed over 200 people, mostly Australian tourists.

The US government has put up a bounty of $10 million for the arrest of Dulmatin, considered to be the top bombing expert of the Indonesia-based JI terrorist network.

Dulmatin and Umar Patek reportedly fled by boat, jumping from the nearby islands of East Indonesia to the coastal areas of Mindanao.

Sovie followed her husband a few months later with her five children, and she gave birth to their sixth child when she met up with Dulmatin in Sulu in 2003.

‘Terrorists nabbed before Christmas’

Meanwhile, Esperon is optimistic that troops could "neutralize" Abu Sayyaf and JI leaders before Christmas.

Speaking to military commanders following an assessment of a four-month campaign to get Dulmatin, Umar Patek and Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani, Esperon said they are now on the third phase of the offensive aimed at neutralizing the terrorist leaders who are believed holed out in the mountains and jungles of Sulu.

"Sana makuha na ang targets bago mag-Pasko," he told his men following a closed-door conference with military commanders.

Esperon said they would have to continue pursuit of the three terrorist leaders on Christmas Day if they fail to capture them by then.

In 2001, when he was 103rd Army Brigade commander in Basilan, he and his men hunted down the Abu Sayyaf terrorists holding hostages seized from the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan, he added. — Roel Pareño, Edith Regalado