INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
ZAMBOANGA CITY—The military said Friday it has turned over to the police a cache of firearms seized by security forces two days earlier from a resort owned by the mayor of a town in Sulu.
Col. Alan Arrojado, commander of Joint Task Group Sulu, said in a telephone interview that the military wanted the firearms, which a police official said were seized from a resort owned by Indanan Mayor Saripuddin Jikiri, tested as these might have been used in criminal activities.
Senior Supt. Noel Armilla, officer-in-charge of the police in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, told the Inquirer by phone that a total of 13 firearms had been turned over by the military to the police.
He said the military told the police these were found inside the resort owned by Jikiri in Indanan’s Barangay Mangis.
He said that as reported by the military, the firearms were discovered during an operation by the Joint Task Group Sulu.
“There was a chase. The armed men abandoned their weapons,” Armilla said, adding, however, that “the mayor denies owning the firearms.”
But Jikiri told the Inquirer in a separate telephone interview that “those firearms belonged to my security personnel, (barangay police action team) members and those securing the projects in Karawan, Mangis and our town hall.”
“They took those firearms without proper coordination; there was not even a search warrant,” he said.
Jikiri said the firearms were licensed, and “the police can vouch for that.”
He also decried what he described as the excessive use of force by the soldiers who raided his resort.
“Some of the houses nearby were damaged when these were hit by their vehicles,” Jikiri said.
He said he was preparing charges against military officials and the soldiers involved in the raid.