‘What shootout?’

Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi was confirmed killed but his death — instead of closing an episode that embarrassed President Arroyo — was as shrouded in mystery as his escape from Camp Crame last July 14.

Police and military authorities said yesterday Al-Ghozi, an Indonesian who was one of Asia’s most-wanted terror suspects, was killed in a shootout on Sunday with government forces in North Cotabato.

But local officials and residents in the North Cotabato town where the confessed Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) bombmaker was killed said there was no sign of a gunfight, fueling speculation that Al-Ghozi had long been recaptured and then killed at the best time to boost the Arroyo administration’s anti-terror image.

A source alleged to The STAR that the government even paid P20 million to an unidentified group that purportedly had custody of Al-Ghozi.

Military and police officials said Al-Ghozi, 32, and an unidentified man were tracked down in a small van that tried to run through a checkpoint on the Cotabato-Davao Highway at about 8 p.m. Sunday in Barangay Pugon in Pigkawanan town, North Cotabato.

Al-Ghozi allegedly fired twice at the police officers and troops manning the checkpoint and was killed. Police said Al-Ghozi took five bullets — two in the chest, one on his left side, one each in both arms.

Philippine National Police chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane, who flew to Mindanao yesterday, said the other man escaped.

Army Maj. Generoso Senga said the team was led by the Police Anti-Crime and Emergency Response (Pacer) task force, which was conducting joint operations at the time.

"This operation has been going on for a long time now, but it looks like Pacer got him," Senga said.

"It is confirmed, but details will follow," military vice chief of staff Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia said, explaining that details of the operation could not yet be disclosed.

However, North Cotabato Gov. Manuel Piñol and other local officials strongly insisted there was no gunbattle, saying "there were only two or three shots heard in the area where the alleged encounter took place."

"There was no encounter or everyone else in that town would know if there was a shootout," Piñol said, explaining that local police have a close security network because of Muslim rebel presence in the area.

"We were informed by residents about a shooting incident in Pigkawayan town but when we arrived there, we did not see indications of any gunbattle," Senior Inspector Raulito Suyom, Pigkawayan police chief, said.

Ebdane denied allegations that Al-Ghozi’s killing had been staged. "Only a few people could have witnessed the armed encounter because it was raining hard at that time," he said.

Ebdane said fingerprints had confirmed the body was Al-Ghozi’s and that it would be likely be turned over to Indonesian authorities without an autopsy being conducted, in line with Muslim custom.

Television showed grisly pictures of the body lying in a morgue dressed only in underwear and surrounded by police officials.

Al-Ghozi escaped from a heavily guarded jail in Camp Crame, with two members of the Abu Sayyaf, setting off fears of new attacks.

He slipped out as Australian Prime Minister John Howard was in Manila to discuss counterterrorism cooperation, embarrassing Mrs. Arroyo and putting Ebdane’s job in jeopardy.

"Parang nabunutan ng tinik (It’s like having a thorn taken out)," Ebdane said when asked by reporters how he felt when he heard the news.

One of the men that escaped with Al-Ghozi, Omar Opik Lasal, was arrested Friday in Zamboanga del Sur. Abdulmukim Edris was killed in August after he allegedly tried to grab the gun of a soldier shortly after he was nabbed at a roadblock in Lanao del Norte.

Lasal, who is in military custody, provided information that led authorities to Al-Ghozi, GMA television reported yesterday.

Rumors have swirled in recent weeks that a Muslim rebel group had captured Al-Ghozi and was negotiating his handover to the government. The government had announced a reward of P10 million for Al-Ghozi, dead or alive.

Ebdane said a group of civilians would receive the reward. He did not elaborate.

Bolstering the rumors, a source in the intelligence community informed The STAR last week that the reward was being readied and Al-Ghozi would finally surface.

"We have documentary evidence to prove that Al-Ghozi has been under the custody of his handlers. What group, we don’t want to talk about it," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The source said Al-Ghozi, Edris and Lasal were recaptured on Aug. 7 in Lanao del Norte, not far from where Edris was shot dead.

Al-Ghozi was also rumored to have been captured a week later.

Another source, meanwhile, said the group asked and got P20 million as "insurance money" from the government for Al-Ghozi and that Ebdane allegedly negotiated with Al-Ghozi’s "handlers" near Davao City.

Malacañang then sent a "very able negotiator" when the talks became uncertain, the source added. "There was an apparent distrust by the handlers on both the police and the military, that was why Malacañang had to step in."

Malacañang and Ebdane were not immediately available for comment.

Al-Ghozi’s death gave Mrs. Arroyo a victory in the war on terrorism just six days before US President George W. Bush visits Manila as a goodwill gesture for Mrs. Arroyo’s staunch support of the US-led war on terror. The killing also came on the first anniversary of the Bali nightclub bombings in Indonesia.

But some Arroyo critics find the killing suspicious.

"Al-Ghozi’s killings reads like an awfully crafted script. The timing is just too perfect," said Teodoro Casiño, secretary-general of the left-leaning Bayan activist group. "We suspect Al-Ghozi was captured much, much earlier to be killed just at the right moment, which was yesterday."

Al-Ghozi was caught in January 2002 in a downtown Manila hotel and sentenced to 12 years in prison for illegally possessing explosives.

He had admitted involvement in a series of Metro Manila bombings on Dec. 30, 2000, that killed 22 people and wounded more than 100 others.

He also allegedly detonated a car bomb outside the Jakarta home of then-Philippine ambassador Leonides Caday in August 2000, killing two Indonesians and injuring 21 others including the envoy.

Al-Ghozi allegedly developed contacts with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 1996, later providing the separatists with explosives training. The MILF has denied any links with Al-Ghozi and with any terrorist group. — with Edith Regalado, John Paul Jubelag, Bong Fabe, Jaime Laude, Christina Mendez, Paolo Romero, Jose Rodel Clapano, Cecille Suerte Felipe, AP, AFP, Reuters