Maguindanao massacre suspect, ‘overstaying’ Iraqi chemist fall

A suspect in the still-unresolved Maguindanao massacre that took 58 lives in 2009 had been arrested at a police checkpoint in Sultan Kudarat.

Supt. James Allan Logan, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said joint operatives of the CIDG, the Sultan Kudarat police and the Maguindanao provincial public safety battalion, were manning a checkpoint when Tho Amino, who is facing 56 counts of murder, was arrested while aboard a multicab around 4:50 p.m. on Sunday.

In Angeles City, police officers also arrested an “overstaying” Iraqi chemist, Taha Mohamed Al-Jabouri, 64, who had arrived in Manila from Istanbul, Turkey, on Aug. 27 last year.

Al-Jabouri allegedly admitted that he was an “explosives consultant” to the Palestinian militant group Hamas and to “extremist movements in the Middle East.”

Jabouri was arrested early Sunday morning at Barangay Malabanias, Angeles City. —REPORTS FROM EDWIN FERNANDEZ AND JAYMEE T. GAMIL