Terror suspect deported

A suspected Armenian terrorist who escaped from detention last Nov. 23 but was recaptured nine days later was deported yesterday by the Bureau of Immigration.

Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo said Khachik Aslanyan, 41, was deported after being recaptured in Makati City by joint agents of the Bureau of Immigration and naval intelligence.

He was deported to the Armenian capital of Yerevan aboard an Aeroflot flight that left the Ninoy Aquino International Airport yesterday. He was escorted by Raymondo Liwag, acting civil security of the bureau.

Aslanyan bolted the immigration detention cell in Intramuros when he took advantage of a commotion involving other foreign detainees by jumping from the window of an office above the cell.

Domingo said Aslanyan was detained in a maximum security prison at Fort Bonifacio where he was interrogated by military intelligence officials before being deported.

The immigration bureau declared the Armenian a threat to national security as he had planned to bomb the Turkish Embassy in Manila.

Records sowed that the Armenian was arrested in Vancouver, Canada in 1997 when he was caught with a hand grenade while on board a Korean Airlines flight that came from Manila and Seoul.

He was tried, convicted and served time in jail on charges of possessing a forged passport and carrying a weapon inside an aircraft. – Rey Arquiza