JI to rescue Indon terrorist?

KORONADAL CITY — Jail authorities in South Cotabato are on alert due to an intelligence report that the terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is planning to spring a suspected Indonesian terrorist from the provincial jail here.

In a recent interview with Bombo Radyo, jail warden Nilo Sintin said all jail guards are under instruction to be always on alert because of the supposed JI plan to forcibly take Taufek Refke out of the provincial jail.

"All the jail guards are on alert. We cannot afford to ignore the intelligence report. It is better to be prepared," Sintin said.

Refke, the alleged bagman of JI in Central Mindanao, was arrested in nearby Cotabato City in October 2003.

Refke was later brought to Manila upon the orders of President Arroyo purposely to present him to the media.

Reports said Refke entered the country in 1998 to train locally recruited JI operatives for their Mindanao operations.

The Indonesia-based JI has links with the international terror network of fugitive Osama bin Laden.

Refke was transferred to the South Cotabato provincial jail last year in connection with his alleged involvement in the May 2003 bombing here that left nine people dead and 40 others wounded.

Refke was reportedly trained by another Indonesian terrorist, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, who was killed in an alleged shootout with government forces in North Cotabato in 2003 several months after he bolted detention.

Aside from Refke, there are several other suspected terrorists detained in the South Cotabato provincial jail. Some of them are suspects in last year’s bombings in this city.

Several bomb explosions have rocked this southern city in the past three years, killing dozens of people and seriously wounding a hundred others.

As a precautionary measure, Sintin said they have tightened security in the provincial jail compound by constructing a perimeter fence in an adjacent area being claimed by informal settlers.

Sintin said there are at least 800 convicts and inmates, excluding women, who are detained in the provincial jail.