POLICE announced Tuesday the capture in Jolo, Sulu on Friday of an alleged member of the crime gang Abu Sayyaf wanted for the August 2002 kidnapping of six members of the Jehovah?s Witnesses.
Jul Ahmad Ahaadi, 33, who goes by the alias Jul Puti, was captured by Philippine Air Force men inside Camp Asturias, headquarters of the Philippine National Police in Sulu.
Two Jehovah?s Witnesses victims were beheaded by their captors.
Lieutenant Colonel Miguel Okol, spokesman of the Air Force, said an operative had befriended Ahaadi, who went tricycle driving for a living while concealing his real identity.
The operative took a ride in Ahaadi?s tricycle to Camp Asturias. There, Ahaadi was arrested, Okol said.
Okol attributed Ahaadi?s arrest to intelligence work by operatives of the 300th Air Intelligence and Security Group who coordinated with local police.
He said Ahaadi was part of the group of Abu Sayyaf bandits that included Ibno Tamiya and Samsudin Musa who have been arrested earlier.
In Marawi City, police announced the death in a clash of the leader of a gang behind a string of crimes in the two Lanao provinces, including extortion, bus burning, highway robberies and kidnapping.
Superintendent Cosanie Derogongan, Lanao del Sur police chief, said Khalid Saripada Pansar was killed in a clash with government forces in Pualas town on Saturday.
He said police confirmed Pansar?s identity first before announcing his death.
Chief Superintendent Bienvenido Latag, chief of police in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said Pansar was also involved in the August 31 abduction of Marawi-based trader Abdulcarim Magarang.
Derogongan said Pansar?s group was responsible for the series of highway robberies, bus burning ? including that of a Rural Transit bus a few months ago in Lanao del Norte ?
and extortion in the Lanao provinces.
?The purpose of the operation was to arrest him,? said Latag. Judge Amina Mimbala, of a Marawi City court, issued a warrant for the arrest of Pansar for murder.
Instead of yielding, Derogongan said Pansar shot it out with police.
Derogongan said police were convinced that Pansar?s death was a big blow to his gang.
Kidnap victim Magarang, however, is still in captivity, police said. His captors are demanding P2 million in ransom.
