‘My husband’s not a terrorist’

DATU PIANG, Maguindanao — The wife and three children here of Egyptian national Hassan Mustapha Bakry, who was arrested for his alleged links with the al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah terror networks, have appealed for Malacañang’s compassion, saying he was a poor firewood vendor and not a terrorist.

Local officials and neighbors of Bakry, who has three children with a Maguindanaon named Rohaida, has no derogatory records in the municipality.

"He has been here since the early 1990s and has been sustaining his family from his meager earnings as a fisherman and firewood gatherer. He is not a terrorist," Rohaida told The STAR in Filipino.

With her husband now incarcerated, Rohaida said she would be forced to stop her children from going to school.

Bakry’s arrest has left his family in trauma. His eldest son, 12-year-old Mohammad, said one of the soldiers who barged into their house at dawn last Wednesday kicked him on the abdomen when he tried to hug his father while he was being dragged out of their shanty.

Mohammad’s siblings, Mustapha, 8, and Nihmat, 10, have been absent from school since their father’s arrest, afraid that the soldiers would return and take them, too.

The local police said Bakry arrived here in the early 1990s, prodded by a friend, Sheik Zacaria Balabadan, whom he met while he was roaming around Manila.

"During his stay in Manila, he ventured into a business there, which got bankrupt. He was convinced by his friend to settle in Datu Piang since he already (had no) money to travel back to Egypt," said a neighbor, who asked to be identified only as Salik.

Officials of Barangay Magaslong here, where Bakry has built a small house, about five meters long and four meters wide with a nipa roof, described him as a hardworking man who has been concerned about his children’s schooling.

"They don’t even have a cellphone and can hardly eat three times a day. How can he be a foreign-funded terrorist? They have been living like that for more than a decade now," said Barangay Magaslong chairman Ali Samula.

Police records show that Bakry, born on Oct. 30, 1969, married Rohaida, who belongs to the Mamalimping clan here, on Feb. 29, 1992.

"We have known him since and as far as our information is concerned, he is not linked to the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) either," said Ulama Akhad, Datu Piang’s municipal administrator.

Akhad, however, said they welcome a deeper, independent probe on Bakry to determine, once and for all, if he has links with secessionist forces or any international terrorist group.

Benedict Carandang, spokesman of Datu Piang Mayor Shamier Uy, said the municipal government will, in the meantime, adopt Bakry’s family while he is under military detention.

"As far as our local government is concerned, Bakry is a respectable man and is known here for his being a hard worker," Carandang said.

He admitted that Bakry was one of those who were placed under tight surveillance after the December 2003 bombing here that left 18 people dead, among them Mayor Datu Saudi Ampatuan, son of Maguindanao’s iron-fisted Gov. Datu Andal Ampatuan.

"Imagine the eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth policy of our governor in dealing with enemies of the state. Yet, Bakry, after having been checked thoroughly, with the help of his neighbors and friends, had been cleared of suspicions that he was involved in that deadly bombing," Carandang said.

Bakry’s children said President Arroyo must promptly intervene and free their father who they believe is not a terrorist.