DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Jan. 14, 2012) – Police and military forces have captured Saturday the prime suspect in two bombings in a failed assassination that targeted an influential Muslim politician in the southern Philippines, officials said.
Officials said security forces arrested Timogen Tulawie, alias Cocoy, before dawn in a raid on his hideout in the village of Catalunan Grande in Davao City.
“Timogen Tulawie has been arrested and he is now being interrogated,” Senior Inspector Gretchin Cinco, a deputy spokesperson for the regional police force in southern Mindanao told the Mindanao Examiner.
Police in Tolomo district which has jurisdiction over the village of Catalunan Grande said Tulawie was arrested by commandos and intelligence agents at around 1 a.m. at Elenita Heights.
“There is a warrant for his arrest which was issued by Judge Leo Princepe, of the Regional Trial Court in Sulu, for several criminal cases,” said police officer Jerry Nagar in a separate interview.
The Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City said the capture of Tulawie was a joint operation by the Military Intelligence 9, the Philippine National Police-Special Action Force and the Southern Mindanao Police Office. “They successfully apprehended ASG member Timogen ‘Cocoy’ Tulawie in Catalunan in Davao City,” said Army Colonel Randolph Cabangbang, a regional military spokesman.
Tulawie is accused as behind the May 2009 roadside bombing on the convoy of Sulu Governor Sakur Tan in Patikul town. Tan survived the assassination attempt, but he and a town mayor, Hatta Berto, of Pandami, and nine others were injured in the attack.
Police said it arrested two suspected Abu Sayyaf terrorists Juhan Alimuddin and Sulayman Muin in 2009 that were tagged as among those who bombed Tan’s convoy and they implicated Tulawie in the failed assassination of Tan. The duo was captured following a firefight with police forces in Sulu.
The two men told police that Tulawie, a known activist and a defeated congressional candidate in the 2007 elections, allegedly ordered the attack.
Police said Tulawie was also the alleged mastermind in the August 2010 suicide bombing that targeted Tan and his family at Zamboanga City International Airport.
Tan was among two dozens wounded in that bombing that killed the bomber, Reynaldo Apilado, and another man, Hatimil Haron.
Police filed criminal charges against Tulawie in Sulu province and in Zamboanga City in connection with the two bombings. Tulawie, who previously denied the accusations against him, escaped a massive police manhunt in Sulu and Zamboanga and went into hiding until his capture in Davao City.
The National Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group were also pursuing Tulawie since then. Tan could not be reached to comment on the arrest of Tulawie.(Mindanao Examiner)
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