Grenade thrower caught while trying to escape
KIDAPAWAN CITY, North Cotabato – A suspected bomber was arrested here while trying to flee the scene of a bomb explosion in the commercial district of Kabacan, North Cotabato, the police said Saturday.
Superintendent Jordain Maribojo, Kabacan police chief, said Abdul Hapid, a resident of Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat, was collared by policemen and members of the Barangay (village) Peacekeeping Action Team, while fleeing Costar RTW Store on USM Avenue past 11 p.m. Friday.
Maribojo said witnesses positively identified Hapid as the man who tossed a grenade in front of the store. No one was injured in the explosion.
“He was fleeing on a tricycab when spotted,” he said.
Maribojo said another grenade was seized from the suspect after he was arrested.
“He is currently being held at the police detention cell pending the filing of charges against him. We are also investigating his motive,” Maribojo said.
Hapid was the fourth bomb suspect arrested in connection with attacks in southern and central Mindanao.
On April 29, one of seventeen suspects criminally charged in connection with the September 2008 bus explosion in Digos City in Davao del Sur also fell into the hands of authorities.
Superintendent Querubin Manalang, Digos City police chief, said Tahyrr Abubakar, 28, a resident of Buluan, Maguindanao, had been remanded to the city jail there following his turnover by Central Mindanao authorities.
Manalang said Abubakar was arrested on April 29 in Tacurong City on the basis of a warrant issued by Executive Judge Carmelita Davin of the Regional Trial Court’s Branch 19 in Digos City.
He was among the suspects in the bombing of a Metro Shuttle Bus in which six persons were killed and 18 others wounded at the Digos overland terminal.
The suspect denied any involvement in the bombing or any links to the Al Khobar extortion gang, the group blamed for the bombing.
He said he was an Arabic school teacher and a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
He said his name was Tahyrr Sanday and not Tahyrr Abubakar.
On March 5, Ogie Piang Kimbaw, another suspected al Khobar member, was arrested in Datu Anggal Midtimbang town in Maguindanao.
It was Kimbaw who led authorities to the whereabouts of Datukan Samad, also known as “Commander Lastikman,” on April 30. Samad was a notorious extortion leader, who had bolted jail.
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