FBI doubts remains are Dulmatin

ZAMBOANGA CITY – It remains uncertain whether Dulmatin, Asia’s most wanted terrorist, is dead.

Quoting a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, a source said DNA tests on a sample tissue extracted from remains dug up in the jungles of Tawi-Tawi showed inconclusive results that they were Dulmatin’s.

The initial findings were revealed by an FBI agent conducting the DNA tests on the remains, according to the official source who asked not to be named as he is not the right official to make the announcement.

“An agent of the FBI said it was 50-50 if the recovered remains were really of Dulmatin,” the source said.

“The findings would not be conclusive,” the source said. “It must be (compared with DNA) from the direct descendants of Dulmatin.”

At least six children of Dulmatin and his wife Istiada Sovie were recovered by military intelligence agents in two separate operations in Patikul, Sulu and Simunul, Tawi-Tawi last year.

In the absence of tissue samples from the direct descendants of Dulmatin, the FBI and the police crime laboratory must make another test to determine if indeed the remains were that of Dulmatin, the source said.

A check with the police crime laboratory, which had also conducted its separate forensic testing, has not yet yielded result.

Superintendent Edgardo Lenizo, regional police crime laboratory chief, said there has been no result yet and he could not give an exact date on the result of their investigation. “As of now we cannot reveal any result,” he said. – Roel Pareño