A Philippine court yesterday sentenced to death an Indonesian and two Filipino Muslim militants for their roles in the bombing of a Manila bus in February.
The Feb. 14 attack killed four people and wounded scores of others. The al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group had claimed responsibility for the bombing, as well as two other bomb attacks in two southern towns on the same day, in retaliation for a military offensive against militants.
The Indonesian, who goes by one name, Rohmat, is a confessed member of the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah who was captured in March in the southern Philippines, where authorities say several dozen Indonesian militants have been training local guerrillas in bomb-making and plotting attacks.
PHOTO: EPA
Rohmat pleaded not guilty, while two Filipino co-accused, Gamal Baharan and Abu Khalil Trinidad, admitted to multiple murder charges.
Prosecutors have dropped charges against another suspect, Gappal Bannah, an Abu Sayyaf member, after he became a state witness.
Rohmat said during his arraignment in April that he had nothing to do with the bombing because he was in the Philippines' southern Mindanao region at the time. But he claimed he provided training in weapons, tactics and map reading to the three other suspects.
"This decision convicting all the accused of the complex crime of multiple murder, murder, and frustrated murder, was rendered after thoroughly and painstakingly evaluating the evidence presented, the most significant of which included the ... voluntary pleas of accused Baharan and Trinidad [and] the clear and categorical testimony of accused-turned state witness [Bannah]," Judge Marissa Guillen of the Makati City Regional Trial Court said in a statement.
Prosecutors also charged Abu Sayyaf chiefs Khadaffy Janjalani and Abu Sulaiman for the bus bombing. The two leaders remain at large.
During the five-month trial, one of the witnesses, a bus conductor, identified Baharan and Trinidad as passengers who left the bus in a hurry shortly before the blast, state prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco said.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
A surprising gut feeling may help pigeons find their way home. Animals use various techniques to navigate, including following the stars and remembering key landmarks. Birds, fish and turtles orient themselves using Earth’s magnetic field as a compass, but it is not yet clear how exactly they do this. Pigeons are a well-known group of frequent flyers that can traverse hundreds of kilometers in a single day. For thousands of years, humans have used them to carry news, notes and military messages. Scientists have long tried to untangle how pigeons travel without getting lost. Some think the birds detect magnetic cues using light-sensitive
RSS