Gone for good

In Jakarta last Monday, an Indonesian was sentenced to 20 years in prison for bombing two churches and the home of Philippine Ambassador Leonides Caday.

Abdul Jabar was just the latest terrorist to be convicted in the Indonesian capital. The ringleaders of the deadly nightclub bombings in Bali have all been arrested, including suspected mastermind Ali Ghufron. The guy who brought the explosives, Amrozi, has been sentenced to death, just one year after the attack.

Even Muslim cleric Abubakar Ba’asyir, tagged as the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), is serving a four-year jail term for treason and violation of immigration laws. This despite fears that his imprisonment would spark unrest in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

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In the Philippines last Monday, President Arroyo flew to General Santos City for a photo op with the cadaver of Indonesian terrorist Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi. The face was clean-shaven and the body unusually clean for someone who had died of multiple gunshot wounds, but it was Al-Ghozi all right. Boy, that cadaver must have decomposed very quickly; everyone at the photo op, from the President down, had to wear a mask.

Al-Ghozi may be a martyr to his mom, but for Filipinos he was a ruthless murderer. If he’s dead, good riddance – that’s one less bomb-making terrorist to worry about.

We wouldn’t mind, however, if someone had taken his deposition first about his dramatic escape from the headquarters of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

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Which would you prefer: Indonesian justice, or swift justice, Philippine style?

Filipinos don’t have much choice. Al-Ghozi was doing time for possession of a ton of explosives when he escaped from Camp Crame last July 14 together with two Abu Sayyaf members. Our cops do manage to arrest the bad guys, but by the time the crooks are convicted, the nation has forgotten the case. And when the bad guys are put behind bars, they manage to escape.

So how many people care if Al-Ghozi really shot it out with government troops, or if he was executed after being handed over by a rat in exchange for millions of pesos? He’s dead. Neutralized. Some folks are richer by about P10 million. Everybody happy.

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My fearless forecast is that after Al-Ghozi, Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani will be the next to be pulled out of a morgue freezer for a photo op with commander-in-chief Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

A report yesterday said the Philippine military had asked the United States earlier this year to deploy Orion P3 spy planes to help in the manhunt for Janjalani in Mindanao. Janjalani, who fled Basilan last year before the start of the Balikatan joint military exercises, has reportedly left Sulu but is still in Mindanao.

Reports said the Americans had also been asked by the Philippines for help in the hunt for Al-Ghozi.

His remains were flown yesterday to Indonesia, without an autopsy being conducted here. I thought all deaths from guns or bladed weapons were forensic cases requiring an autopsy. PNP officials said no autopsy was conducted out of respect for Muslim tradition, which also supposedly requires burial within 24 hours after death.

Oh well, what good would an autopsy have done, considering that all we have is just the official version of the story? If the cops tell us that Al-Ghozi committed suicide, we can’t prove otherwise.

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We may also never know the true story behind that escape from Camp Crame. Why do we keep insisting that there is a true story other than the one given us by the cops? Because the lone survivor among the three escapees – Abu Sayyaf member Omar Opik Lasal – has given two versions of the escape so far, both of which don’t jibe with the official findings of the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the fact-finding committee headed by retired justice chief Sedfrey Ordoñez.

Lasal told ABS-CBN that early in the morning of July 14, he and his two fellow escapees simply walked out of their poorly secured detention cell at the Intelligence Group headquarters, past a police guard who ignored them, then to the camp’s main gate where there were four guards who also failed to recognize a clean-shaven Al-Ghozi. Outside the gate the three fugitives hailed a cab and made their getaway, Lasal said.

In another interview in Mindanao, Lasal said there were several people at IG headquarters and many guards at the Crame gate. Where were the guards supposedly sleeping at IG, as presented in a re-enactment of the escape by CIDG chief Eduardo Matillano? The CIDG chief, by the way, is still on leave following the recent hostage incident at his headquarters that left three cops and an Abu Sayyaf terrorist dead.

If not for those inconsistencies, I could believe Lasal’s story of incredible negligence at PNP headquarters. A prisoner, after all, escaped from Camp Crame still handcuffed to his folding bed! And this was just two weeks after Al-Ghozi’s escape, while the camp was on red alert because of the Oakwood mutiny.

Oh well, his version of the escape has probably kept Lasal alive. I wouldn’t be surprised though if one day he is gunned down while trying to escape or trying to grab a soldier’s rifle.

Meanwhile, what will the government do with his revelation that Al-Ghozi was given refuge by the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front? Will the peace talks be called off?

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Now we should decide if we want to continue with this quick method of dealing with people who pose a clear and present danger to our society.

The pluses: the bad guys are gone for good, three bullets are cheaper than lethal injection, there’s no trial so we save on court expenditures, and it certainly sends a chilling message to other terrorists.

The minuses: one day you could be mistaken for a terrorist and gunned down, and your mother can’t even claim that you died a martyr for your cause. Also, summary executions are supposed to be against the law. Otherwise there would be no need to revive the Kuratong Baleleng case against that naughty opposition presidential aspirant Panfilo Lacson.

But who said Al-Ghozi was executed?

With his remains given a proper Muslim burial, we’ll never know.