Although the authorities indicated that they had the goods on a Jordanian national and suspected international terrorist, they could only book him for being an overstaying and undesirable alien as a prerequisite to deportation proceedings.
Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo ordered yesterday the deportation of Falah Awwad Al Dhalain, tagged as the financier of an Islamic school being used as a terrorist training camp in Pangasinan. She said they were forced to file the lighter charge against the suspect for lack of an anti-terrorist law.
Al Dhalain was arrested while about to board a Philippines Airlines flight for Cebu at the Centennial Terminal of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
The Jordanian was also cited as the financier of Rajah Soliman Movement (RSM), an organization of Islam converts that operated the Madrasah (Muslim school) in the island-town of Anda in Pangasinan, raided last week by the police amid suspicions that it was being used as a terrorist training camp.
Police authorities also theorized that financial contributions for the school from abroad were being diverted by Al Dhalain to bankroll the training and procurement of firearms needed by the terrorist group.
The Immigration chief also said Al Dhalain was traveling on an expired passport and there were no records that he returned to the country after leaving Manila on Oct. 27 last year.
Al Dhalain was linked to the RSM by Omar Mayuno, a native of Ipil, Zamboanga del Sur who was captured following a shootout with elements of the Tarlac City police last May 1.
Another suspected member of the RSM, identified as Khalid Amir Trinidad, was slain in the fighting.
The lawmen subsequently raided an RSM headquarters in San Clemente town in Tarlac where eight other suspected members of the Islamist extremist group were nabbed.
Domingo said Mayuno has admitted that he converted to Islam last January by a cousin who works for Al Dhalain’s Islamic Information Center with offices in Pasong Tamo, Makati.
When presented to the media by Domingo yesterday, Al Dhalain denied knowing the other arrested suspects, saying he was a "peacemaker" and a "doctor of psychology" who had been living in the Philippines for 12 years.
Asked how he entered Manila without records, Al Dhalain said he merely flew in.
He also claimed he was married to a Filipina and had two children, but Domingo said an investigation found out that the marriage contract was fake.
Earlier, police filed charges of illegal possession of firearms, ammunition and explosives against suspected terrorist Abdurakman Abdul Quirante and 15 alleged members of a mysterious terrorist group called Haraka (The Movement) before the provincial prosecutor’s office in Tarlac City.
Quirante was also tagged by the police as the overseer of a terrorist training camp in Sitio Dueg and Babaelian in Barangay Maasin in San Clemente town, Tarlac which was raided recently by lawmen.
During the assault, police confiscated several high-powered firearms, ammunition, detonating cords and other explosive materials, as well as high-tech communications equipment and night-vision goggles.
Nabbed in the raid were suspected terrorists Feliciano de los Reyes alias Abubakar, an Islamic teacher who hails from Lamitan town in Basilan and a 13-year-old boy from Capas, Tarlac who was reportedly undergoing indoctrination on Islamic extremism.
De los Reyes, the boy and Mayuno, 20, have also been charged with illegal possession of firearms, ammunition and explosives. –Rey Arquiza, AP, AFP