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Authorities have arrested a foreigner suspected of
plotting to assassinate President Gloria Arroyo, Director General
Avelino Razon Jr., chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP),
said Friday.
He did not release details. Razon
said the suspect was arrested in a province near Metro Manila, and
police have established the would-be assassin’s links to Jemaah
Islamiah and to the local Abu Sayyaf, which has been connected with
the international terror group al-Qaeda.
Razon refused to disclose the
suspect’s identity, but said police will present the person to
media “in due time.”
“We cannot reveal the name [of
the foreigner], since there’s still some existing operations to
account for all his other companions,” he said.
This is the second time in the
last two weeks that police bared an alleged plot to kill President
Arroyo, who now faces mounting clamor for her resignation on account
of alleged corruption and bribery in the scrapped national broadband
deal.
In the first threat, the
President cancelled her trip to Baguio, where she was to attend a
ceremony at the Philippine Military Academy.
In that incident, police arrested
suspects who had several documents written in Arabic that detailed
plans or trips of the President. The documents also contain alleged
casing plans, sketches of foreign embassies in Metro Manila that
police believe were targets for bomb attacks.
On Friday, Razon said they
decided to reveal the arrest of the foreigner to prove that the
assassination plot against the President was genuine.
Razon said he was hurt by media
reports that the plot to assassinate Mrs. Arroyo was only a
government-instigated hoax and propaganda.
“We are very careful on this,
but we are forced to divulge it to the public because there were
insinuation that it was moro-moro to protect our policemen,” Razon
said. “Moro-moro” is a colloquial term meaning haphazard.
The arrested foreigner is now
undergoing tactical interrogation, and Razon said they encourage
their policemen to focus on their job.
--Anthony A. Vargas and Xinhua
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