AFP: Imams helped identify 3 suspects in bus bombing

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines – Imams (Muslim clerics) helped identify the three suspects in the Oct. 21 bus bombing in Matalam, North Cotabato, an Army official said yesterday.

Lt. Col. Benjamin Hao, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the suspects were earlier identified as Torex, Kagui and Shang, all surnamed Ulama, but the Islamic community in Central Mindanao bared that their real names are Ibrahim Alimanan, Alex Samal, and Yazer “Abdullah” Talusog, respectively.

“These people are trained to mislead investigators so it’s but normal for them to introduce themselves wrongly when arrested,” Hao said.

“We ought to thank these religious leaders for helping the police and military achieve a breakthrough in the efforts of the Philippine National Police to put those responsible for the bombing behind bars,” he added.

Meanwhile, the North Cotabato police will file tomorrow multiple murder and frustrated murder charges against the three suspects.

Region 12 police director Chief Superintendent Felicisimo Khu, Region 12 police director, said the suspects are in the custody of the North Cotabato police, undergoing interrogation.

The three suspected bombers were cornered in their hideout in Cotabato City Saturday by operatives of the Region 12 police, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and the Army’s anti-crime Task Force Tugis.

Lt. Col. Roy Galido, commander of Task Force Tugis, a unit of the 6th ID, said the suspects were arrested with the help of a 16-year-old Maguin­danaoan who they first asked to plant an improvised explosive device in a Rural Transit bus with body number 2284 while it was parked along the highway in Kabacan, North Cotabato.

Galido said the suspects did not resist after sensing that operatives of the police and Task Force Tugis had surrounded their hideout at the Shariff district here.

North Cotabato provincial prosecutor Al Calica, chairman of the Mindanao Anti-Terrorism Task Force of the Department of Justice, is helping investigate the incident.

The three suspects were arrested after North Cotabato Gov. Lala Talino-Mendoza offered P100,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the bombers.

Khu said police intelligence units were still gathering information on the identities of the suspects’ accomplices.

Peace advocates in Central Mindanao, among them key members of the Muslim community, said they were surprised why the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has not openly condemned the bus bombing, which left 10 people dead and more than 20 others wounded.

A source said the MILF “has not denied insinuations that its special operations group was behind it.”

North Cotabato’s Christian communities earlier had condemned the bombing as “barbaric” and urged authorities to identify the bombers and file criminal charges against them.