KOTA KINABALU – A wanted member of the terrorist Abu Sayyaf group (ASG) who tried to enter the Philippines by concealing his identity using a Malaysian passport has been detained at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
The 52-year-old suspect, identified as Omar bin Harun, alias Airola-Adjustable, works as a security guard and is a resident of Barangay Kasanyangan district in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga, the Philippine media reported.
The Manila Standard reported that Omar was linked to the kidnapping of a Jehovah’s Witnesses devotee in 2002 during the so-called Lamitan siege.
Philippines Southern Police District (SPD) director Brig-Gen Jimili Macaraeg said police received information that Airola (Omar) was scheduled to arrive at the airport’s Terminal 2 at around 5pm on Tuesday from Malaysia via a Philippines Airline flight.
The suspect was using a Malaysian passport under the name Omar bin Harun.
Ready with an arrest warrant, SPD officers with the help of personnel from the Bureau of Immigration, Aviation Security Group and airport police apprehended the suspect on arrival.
Omar is listed in the Terrorism Screening Centre of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The standing warrant of arrest against him was issued by judge Toribio Ilao Jr of Pasig City regional trial court branch 266 on November 5, 2009, for kidnapping and serious illegal detention with ransom.
No bail was recommended for Omar’s temporary liberty.
A victim positively identified the suspect as one of her abductors in August 2002.
Omar is the fourth member of the Abu Sayyaf group under the leadership of Radullan Sahiron to be arrested by the SPD.
Nabbed earlier were suspected Abu Sayyaf members Taupik Galbun Gaffar alias Pa Wahid, Saik Galbun alias Pa Tanda, and Dumayag Alih Fahad alias Abu Cola, who were collared in Taguig City in July 2021 and February of this year.
Macaraeg said that the SPD is now in coordination with other law enforcement agencies to conduct a thorough investigation and intelligence gathering to determine the reason for the suspect’s return to the country “considering he is a fugitive wanted by law.”
It was reported in January that the Malaysia’s Eastern Sabah Security Command had listed about 20 individuals as being connected to Abu Sayyaf.
The group has recently been involved in kidnap-for-ransom crimes in areas under the Eastern Sabah Security Zone.
In August last year, then Sabah police commissioner Datuk Hazani Ghazali had announced the arrest of 11 individuals allegedly linked to ASG and the fatal shooting of two other suspects by security personnel around Pulau Timbang. Hazani is now federal security and public order director.
He had then said that ASG members were planning to kidnap wealthy estate owners for ransom while living within an oil palm plantation community in Sabah.
He had cautioned that there may be more Abu Sayyaf militants hiding in Sabah.
The group is known for many other abductions and ransom cases over the last two decades.
It has also been involved in a number of killings that have included beheadings.
The group has been aligned with the dreaded Islamic State (IS) network since 2014 when its then head Isnilon Hapilon and others in his group swore their allegiance to the late IS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. – The Vibes, May 15, 2022
