ZAMBOANGA CITY?Former Sulu representative Munir Arbison Thursday rejected claims he was among the plotters of the Aug. 5 Zamboanga airport bomb blast.

Arbison said he was certain that efforts to link him to the bombing were politically motivated.

The former lawmaker has been formally charged, along with two other former Sulu officials, for allegedly conspiring to kill Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan.

Tan was wounded in the blast along with more than 20 other persons while the suspected bomber was killed.

Following the bombing, Tan publicly claimed he believed he was the target of the airport explosion, adding that a similar attempt to kill him was carried out in the past.

He cited the May 13, 2009, bomb explosion that took place outside the Sulu provincial capitol in Patikul.

But Arbison said authorities should dig deeper into claims he plotted the bombing because the supposed witnesses were given money ?in exchange for making up statements to pin him down.?

?We have credible persons who can testify that the witnesses were paid and coaxed into executing confessions implicating me,? Arbison said by phone Tuesday.

Arbison said the charges were ?purely figments of imagination and packs of fabricated lies devised to include me among the suspected perpetrators of that outrageous airport bombing for personal interest and political gratification.?

?I fervently ask the fiscal?s office of Zamboanga City to comprehensively look into the charges and scrutinize the statements and dig deep into the questionable characters of the witnesses,? Arbison said.

Arbison said he has been consulting lawyers so he could formally answer the charges if these had been filed in court. Ed General, Inquirer Mindanao