Posted on 08/12/2003 12:51:47 PM PDT by knighthawk
A Philippines man suspected to have sold explosives to Jemaah Islamiah bomb maker Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi has been arrested in the central Philippines, police said.
Chief Inspector Narvin Sanchex says the suspect, Antonio Reyes, was arrested on the island of Bohol and is being held on the adjacent island of Cebu.
Reyes, originally based in Cebu, had allegedly provided homemade explosives to contacts of al-Ghozi in November 2000 for about 80,000 pesos ($US1,480).
Filipino police arrested al-Ghozi last year and tracked down a 1.2-tonne cache of explosives in a hideout he used in the southern city of General Santos.
He was later sentenced to 17 years in jail and subsequently confessed in jail that he planned to use the explosives acquired from Reyes to bomb Western targets in Singapore.
Reyes is also alleged to have supplied the explosives used in a series of bombings by al-Ghozi-linked militants in Manila in December 2000.
The attacks claimed 22 lives.
Reyes is not a member of any rebel group but is reputed to be a long-time dealer of explosives, made from ammonium nitrate, to illegal dynamite fishermen and small-scale miners.
Al-Ghozi escaped from a police jail last month much to the embarrassment of Indonesian President Gloria Arroyo.
Armed forces chief, General Narciso Abaya, said that al-Ghozi had apparently evaded a military dragnet in the southern province of Lanao del Norte and is believed to have slipped to the nearby province of Maguindanao.
"The latest report is that he is in the Kabuntalan area in Maguindanao. The report says that there is an armed group protecting him, giving him security. We do not know what group this is," the General said.
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