'Commander Lastikman' recaptured in Tacurong City

TACURONG CITY, Philippines  --- Lawmen arrested here Wednesday night Mindanao’s most notorious man --  wanted for drug trafficking, multiple murders, cattle theft and highway robbery -- almost two years after his escape from a jail in Cotabato City.

Datukan Samad, an ethnic Maguindanaon who hails from Pikit town in North Cotabato, was cornered while having a drinking spree with companions in a restaurant.

Samad, also known as “Commander Lastikman,” did not resist arrest by combined Army and police agents.

Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said civilian informants, among them barangay officials in Pikit and in Tacurong City, provided the police and military information on Samad’s whereabouts, leading agents to the restaurant where he was nabbed.

Samad  was feared in Pikit and in Pagalungan, Maguindanao  and that local officials have been reluctant to help authorities serve him  any of the more than a dozen warrants for his arrest.

Samad's group, composed of some 50 men armed with assault rifles and shoulder-fire anti-tank rockets, also mulcts money, as "revolutionary tax,"  from peasant communities in areas where it operates.

Three persons were killed, among them a Red Cross volunteer, while 12 others were injured when his followers tried to spring him from the Kidapawan City jail in early 2012.

Samad’s followers first tried to breach through the main gate of the Kidapawan City jail, but balked and retreated after guards engaged them a a firefight.

The gunmen set off improvised explosive devices and shot buildings nearby with assault rifles as they escaped.

“His arrest in Tacurong City was a result of good cooperation among the police, the military, and the barangay folks that extended help confidentially,” Hermoso said.

Samad escaped in July 2012 from the Maguindanao provincial jail in Cotabato City where he was detained while being prosecuted for criminal cases in a local court.

He was last reported to have reunited with his group in Pikit, where a local official allegedly provided him sanctuary.

Samad is now in the custody of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, according to Hermoso. - John Unson