Convicted criminal, cohort busted in Zamboanga City PDEA operation

COTABATO CITY (Updated 5:49 p.m.)— Two men, one of them a convict supposedly clamped down in the San Ramon Penal Colony in Zamboanga City, are now awaiting prosecution after selling P6.8 million worth of shabu to anti-narcotics agents last Tuesday.

Radio reports on Thursday stated that Albadir Mala Ajijul, 28, and his 42-year-old accomplice, Kerwin Mohammad Abdila, are now locked in a detention facility of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-9 in Zamboanga City.

They were immediately arrested after having sold a kilo of shabu, worth P6.8 million, to PDEA-9 agents in a tradeoff last Tuesday in Barangay Talisayan in Zamboanga City, not too distant from the location of the San Ramon Penal Colony.

Agents of PDEA-9 and Zamboanga City officials had confirmed that Abdilla is a person deprived of liberty, supposedly detained at the San Ramon Penal Colony since his conviction for a crime by a local court several years before.

Personnel of the Bureau of Corrections overseeing the San Ramon Penal Colony had reportedly tried, but failed to prevent the PDEA-9 from taking custody of Abdillah.

PDEA-9 officials were quoted in Thursday’s radio reports here as saying that Ajijul and Abdillah had been charged with violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 using the P6.8 million worth shabu seized from them as evidence.