IACAT denies refusing custody of trafficking suspect

MANILA, Philippines - The Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) yesterday denied a report that it refused to take into custody a Filipino – Jordanian woman who was arrested at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) last weekend.

Dana Moallem is reportedly the head of a syndicate behind the illegal deployment of Filipino women to Jordan.

Assistant City Prosecutor Raymond Jonathan Lledo, president of Prosecutors’ League of the Philippines and chair of National Inter-Agency Task Force Against Trafficking (NIATFAT), said the allegation is baseless and misleading.

In a statement, Lledo said it was the IACAT that brought Moallem to the Pasay City prosecutor’s office immediately after her arrest at the NAIA Terminal 3 last Oct. 2 for inquest proceedings.

Lledo said Moallem was arrested and charged along with her aide, Jensen Carlo Suba.

Assistant City Prosecutor Allan Mangabat, duty inquest fiscal on that day, filed illegal recruitment charges against Moallem and scheduled for preliminary investigation the human trafficking charges against her.

Moallem, according to Lledo, was able to post bail so she was ordered released temporarily for further investigation. Suba later on became a witness against Moallem.

Lledo issued these clarifications in the light of reports that IACAT refused custody of Moallem.

According to reports, Moallem forgot her laptop computer at the NAIA immigration office as she rushed to the boarding gate.

When immigration personnel turned on her computer, they found documents indicating the extent of Moallem’s alleged human smuggling operation.

According to immigration personnel, they found the same hotel voucher and consecutively numbered plane tickets for five Filipino women, who were earlier off-loaded on suspicion that they were tourist-workers, on Moallem’s laptop. The women claimed they did not know each other.

Also found in the laptop were names of Filipino women already deployed in Jordan and those who are scheduled to go there.

While still in the process of downloading data from Moallem’s laptop, Moallem returned to retrieve her laptop at the immigration office.

The laptop bag also yielded documents with names of previously offloaded passengers, a simulator checklist and a pad of paper with instructions on how to answer questions by immigration officials, according to reports.