Wanted for 'terrorism,' 2 cohorts arrested in Cotabato City

COTABATO CITY —Three individuals, wanted for high-profile crimes and believed to have links to two local terror groups, were arrested by a police team in a residential area in Cotabato City on Saturday, November 16.

Officials of the Cotabato City Police Office and Brig. Gen. Romeo Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, confirmed to reporters on Sunday, November 17, the arrest of the three wanted persons, one of them a man charged with acts of terror, violation of the International Humanitarian Law and genocide.

The suspect’s two female companions were also detained and locked in a police detention facility for frustrated murder and for harboring a wanted person.

Macapaz said confidential informants led personnel of the Cotabato City police to their hideout along Mabini Street in Barangay Bagua 3, Cotabato City. 

The three wanted persons, reportedly connected with the Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, voluntarily yielded when they were shown copies of the warrants for their arrest by policemen involved in the operation.

The now moribund Dawlah Islamiya and BIFF, tagged in all deadly bombings in Central Mindanao since 2014, were both fashioned from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Records at PRO-BAR and the Army's 6th Infantry Division indicate that 1,895 members of both groups, tagged in all deadly bombings in Central Mindanao since 2014, have surrendered in the past three years through the intercession of police officers and units of 6th ID.