Janjalani’s henchman nabbed in Maguindanao town

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — Government agents arrested at dawn on Sunday a member of the Abu Sayyaf group implicated in the abduction in Palawan of more than a dozen tourists, including American couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, almost five years ago.

The suspect, Borhamj Sami, an ethnic Tausog, voluntarily yielded after sensing that combined police and Army operatives had surrounded his hideout in Parang, a coastal town in the first district of Maguindanao, some 20 kilometers northwest of this Army camp.

Col. Franklin Del Prado, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said Sami, also known as Sammy Marohombsar, Hadji Muladil Aksan and Abo Sami, is a henchman of Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadafy Janjalani.

Del Prado said the soldiers and policemen who raided Sami’s lair in Barangay Facuma in Parang were armed with a warrant for his arrest, issued in November 2001 by Judge Danilo Bucoy of the Regional Trial Court in Basilan.

Del Prado said Sami was also implicated in the abduction in 2000 of almost a hundred grade school pupils and about a dozen teachers in Tumahubong, a hinterland barangay in Sumisip, Basilan.

Sami was said to be among the gunmen who snatched more than a dozen tourists at the Dos Palmas Resort in Palawan, among them the Burnham couple.

Del Prado said Sami, who is now undergoing tactical interrogation at the 6th ID’s headquarters, will be endorsed to the court that issued the warrant of arrest for subsequent prosecution.

Sources in the Muslim religious community said Sami was with Janjalani at the height of the 6th ID’s purge of Abu Sayyaf gunmen at the tri-boundaries of Guindulungan, Talayan and South Upi towns last year.

Janjalani himself is believed to be hiding in Maguindanao after he fled Basilan with trusted escorts. — Jaime Laude, Roel Pareño, AFP, AP