| Submit your comments on this article |
| Southeast Asia |
| Philippines to deport Saudi man |
| 2005-01-26 |
| The Philippine government will deport a Saudi man arrested in the southern Philippines on suspicion of having terror links. He was tagged as a financier for the militant group Abu Sayyaf, blamed by authorities for a spate of bombings and kidnappings in the strife-torn region, officials said yesterday. Airport police and immigration agents, backed by marine soldiers, arrested Mohammad Abdullah Sughayer at the Zamboanga City International Airport when he arrived from Manila on Jan. 17, after his name was included in the government's watch list. Filipino Immigration chief Alipio Fernandez said the Saudi national was positively identified by a detained militant Muhammad Umug as one of the financiers of Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani. Authorities linked Umug to a series of bomb attacks in the southern Philippines. "Sughayer has been positively identified by one neutralized member of the Abu Sayyaf — Muhammad Umog — as the one who is also giving financial support to Janjalani's family (in Basilan island)," Fernandez said at a news conference yesterday in Manila. Television footage yesterday also showed the heavily bearded Sughayer, clad in a dark-colored shirt and pants, covering his face with a newspaper while avoiding dozens of reporters and photographers, who waited for him at the immigration office in Manila. Two security men were spotted escorting Sughayer. Police intelligence chief Ismael Rafanan cleared the foreigner and said they had no evidence to link him to Al-Qaeda or terrorist groups in the southern Philippines. "He is not a member of the Al-Qaeda and he is not a terrorist," Rafanan told reporters in Manila. But Fernandez said he would still deport Sughayer. "We have reports from the intelligence community about Sughayer, we should be extra careful here and we will deport him back to Saudi Arabia," Fernandez told Arab News. He said Sughayer remains in the immigration blacklist and had violated immigration laws. "Sughayer is also facing administrative charges and enough grounds to expel him," he said without elaborating. Sughayer, who claimed to be a businessman, was initially interrogated in Zamboanga City, but flown back to Manila a day after his arrest where he was further investigated. He was in Indonesia before he entered the Philippines, authorities said. A local newspaper Sunstar Zamboanga on Monday ran a story about Sughayer and linked him to the Al-Qaeda network. It said the man, described as a wealthy businessman, traveled to Zambonga to link up or help finance the terror activities of the local militant group Abu Sayyaf, tagged by authorities as behind the series of bombings, killings and kidnappings in the southern Philippines. It quoted unnamed security sources as saying that Sughayer was an Abu Sayyaf financier. Other reports said Sughayer is the finance officer of the Al-Qaeda cells in Southeast Asia. He allegedly put up several non-governmental organizations in the Philippines which authorities said are being used to channel funds to terrorists in the south. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 "Beat it. Don't come back. Our next conversation will be extremely short, and one-sided." |
| Posted by: mojo 2005-01-26 2:12:33 AM |