COTABATO, Philippines: Muslim guerrillas returned to the Philippine government Wednesday at least 16 assault firearms of police anti-terror commandos who were killed in what the insurgents say was a “misencounter” that has stalled a new peace deal.
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leader Rasid Ladiasan said the handover of the firearms to government officials in a military camp in the south was meant to show the group “want peace.” A cellphone was also given back and at least one more rifle from the slain policemen will be returned later, he said.
President Benigno Aquino III has asked the rebels to return the slain commandos’ weapons and help government forces hunt down terror suspects in the south.
“We want to show our sincerity and our commitment to the peace process,” Ladiasan said by phone. “The police and military are no longer our enemies. There has been no fighting for three years, but what happened was really unfortunate and beyond our control.”
“In war, we all lose,” MILF chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said during a ceremony for the return of the firearms.
Presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Deles said the MILF's decision to return the firearms showed that the 11,000-strong group's leaders have control over their fighters, who traditionally don’t return weapons they seize in gunbattles.
“It’s a show of good faith,” Deles said.
The police commandos reportedly killed one of Southeast Asia’s most wanted terror suspects, Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, in a Jan. 25 raid in the marshy outskirts of southern Mamasapano town. But as they withdrew, the policemen got entangled in two gunbattles with MILF fighters and other armed groups in the far-flung region, killing 44 of the commandos.
At least 18 Muslim rebels and three villagers were killed, police said.
The huge police casualty toll — the government’s biggest single-day combat loss in recent memory — angered many, including lawmakers, who have suspended committee hearings on a proposed law that will create a more powerful autonomous region for minority Muslims in the south under a peace deal signed by the government and the Moro rebels last year.
But a cease-fire under the peace deal actually worked to prevent more casualties when foreign and Filipino peacekeepers intervened and managed to ease the fierce Mamasapano clashes. They also arranged the safe retrieval of the slain commandos from the two scenes of the gunbattles after the clashes, officials said.
The United States, Russia, Australia and several other governments have renewed their support to the peace process in the south and have also condoled with the families of the slain commandos.
Police commanders who oversaw the anti-terror raid have acknowledged in congressional hearings that they did not effectively notify the Moro rebels about the raid as required under the cease-fire to prevent accidental clashes.
A police commander involved in the assault also has acknowledged in a congressional inquiry that he and other police officials did not notify the military and an acting national police chief before the assault was launched. That prevented the military from rapidly providing combat support to the commandos who were surrounded by an overwhelming number of insurgents.
Aquino has suggested that the anti-terror raid should have been aborted when the planned night assault unraveled not according to plan.
Peace commitment: Philippines' MILF group returns 16 guns of slain cops
Peace commitment: Philippines' MILF group returns 16 guns of slain cops
Italy blames badly drafted ICC warrant for Libyan suspect’s release
Najim was freed after an appeals court refused to validate his arrest
ROME: Italy’s government shifted blame Wednesday for its much-criticized release of a Libyan war crimes suspect to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which it said had presented a poorly written arrest warrant.
Osama Almasri Najim, the head of Libya’s judicial police, was arrested in the northern Italian city of Turin on January 19 on an ICC warrant, only to be released and flown home to Tripoli two days later on an Italian air force plane.
Opposition parties have denounced the decision to free a man wanted on charges including murder, rape and torture relating to his management of Tripoli’s Mitiga detention center.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio told parliament Wednesday that Najim had been arrested on a warrant “that I do not hesitate to define as characterised by inaccuracies, omissions, discrepancies and contradictory conclusions.”
Najim was freed after an appeals court refused to validate his arrest.
The justice minister said the court had noted discrepancies concerning dates within the arrest warrant, with crimes attributed to Najim in places dated to February 2011 and others to February 2015.
“An irreconcilable contradiction emerges regarding an essential element of the criminal conduct of the arrested person, regarding the time of the crime committed,” said Nordio, citing “patent, gross and serious contradictions” within the warrant.
The ICC six days later sent a “corrected version” of the arrest warrant, Nordio said, including the dissenting opinion of a judge who had questioned a lack of jurisdiction by the court.
AFP asked for comment from the ICC, but did not immediately receive a response.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni revealed last week that she, Nordio and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi were under investigation over the case.
A complaint had been made to a Rome prosecutor, who passed it onto the special court that considers cases against ministers.
Elly Schlein, leader of the center-left opposition Democratic Party, said Wednesday that Italy’s “international credibility has been tarnished” by the case.
And she called again for Meloni to come to parliament herself to explain what she said was the government’s “deliberate choice... to free and escort home a Libyan torturer.”
“What kind of country do we want to be, colleagues? On the side of the tortured or on the side of the torturers?” Schlein asked in parliament.
Piantedosi spoke to MPs shortly after Nordio, where he repeated that once Najim had been released from custody, he was deemed too dangerous to remain in Italy.
He denied suggestions that Italy had bowed to pressure from Libya in repatriating Najim.
Some opposition politicians have alleged the suspect was sent home to avoid jeopardizing relations with Libya.
Italy has a controversial agreement dating from 2017 with the UN-backed Libyan government in Tripoli in which Rome provides training and funding to the Libyan coast guard for help deterring the departures of migrants, or returning those already at sea back to Libya.
“I deny in the most categorical manner that... the government received any act or communication that could even remotely be considered a form of undue pressure,” Piantedosi said.
Italy’s government shifted blame Wednesday for its much-criticized release of Libyan war crimes suspect Osama Najim to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which it said had presented a poorly written arrest warrant. (X/@Radio1Rai)
Belgian police hunting two suspects after Brussels metro shooting
- Police initially launched a manhunt in the tunnels of the metro system
- Broadcaster VRT said the shooting was probably drug-related and said the shooters
BRUSSELS: Belgian police were hunting two suspects on Wednesday after a shooting near the Brussels South international railway station, the city’s prosecutor’s office said.
Nobody was injured in the shooting, which happened around 6.00 am (0500 GMT), at the Clemenceau metro station in central Brussels, prosecutors said, adding there were no indications of a terrorist motive in the incident.
Police initially launched a manhunt in the tunnels of the metro system, which was partially closed after two men carrying machine guns were seen fleeing into the Clemenceau station.
Broadcaster VRT said the shooting was probably drug-related and said the shooters had aimed at one person but had missed.
VRT showed on its website images of two people walking into Clemenceau metro station in central Brussels and opening fire with automatic weapons. The station along with several others around the station were shut for hours after the incident.
Another video showed a large group of heavily armed police assembling at the Clemenceau station, as a massive search for the suspects got underway.
The incident crippled traffic on the heavily used metro system in Brussels, which hosts many European Union institutions and NATO’s headquarters.
By 2 p.m. (1300 GMT) the whole city metro system had reopened, including the stations around the Gare du Midi international train station, the arrival point for Eurostar trains from Paris and London.
Ukraine brings back 150 POWs in latest swap with Russia, Zelensky says
- “Some of the boys were held captive for more than two years,” Zelensky said
KYIV: Ukraine has brought back 150 troops from Russian captivity, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday, announcing the latest prisoner swap with Russia.
“All of them are from different sectors of the front... Some of the boys were held captive for more than two years,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Frenchman returns home after Indonesian death row reprieve: airport source
- Serge Atlaoui, 61, was to be driven from the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris to court and then on to jail
- Atlaoui’s lawyer Richard Sedillot has said he would work to have his client’s sentence “adapted” so that the father of four could be released
Atlaoui’s lawyer Richard Sedillot has said he would work to have his client’s sentence “adapted” so that the father of four could be released
BOBIGNY, France: A Frenchman reprieved after 18 years on death row in Indonesia for alleged drug offenses landed back in France on Wednesday, an airport source said.
Serge Atlaoui, 61, was to be driven from the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris to court and then on to jail, according to a source close to the case and the prosecutor’s office in the nearby town of Bobigny.
Under an agreement last month between both countries for his transfer, Jakarta has left it to the French government to grant him either clemency, amnesty or a reduced sentence.
France abolished capital punishment in 1981.
A prosecutor in Bobigny would inform Atlaoui “of his imprisonment in France in execution of his sentence,” the public prosecutor’s office there said before he landed.
He will then immediately be taken to prison, it added.
Atlaoui’s lawyer Richard Sedillot has said he would work to have his client’s sentence “adapted” so that the father of four could be released.
Atlaoui was arrested in 2005 at a factory in a Jakarta suburb where dozens of kilogrammes of drugs were discovered, with Indonesian authorities accusing him of being a “chemist.”
A welder from Metz in northeastern France, he has always denied being a drug trafficker, saying that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylic factory.
Atlaoui had left Jakarta for Paris on Tuesday evening on board a KLM flight via Amsterdam.
His return was made possible after an agreement between French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin and his Indonesian counterpart, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, on January 24.
In the agreement, Jakarta said it had decided not to execute Atlaoui and authorized his return on “humanitarian grounds” because he was ill.
Atlaoui was tight-lipped and wore a face mask at a news conference at Jakarta’s main airport, after he was driven there in a black van from the capital’s Salemba prison and handed over to French police officers.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past.
The Southeast Asian country has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipino mother on death row and the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring.
According to French association Ensemble contre la peine de mort (“Together Against the Death Penalty“), at least four other French citizens are on death row around the world: two in Morocco, one in China, and a woman in Algeria.
Philippine lawmakers vote to impeach VP Sara Duterte
- Duterte is first sitting vice president to face impeachment in Philippine history
- Final decision to remove her from office is now with the upper house
MANILA: The Philippine House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, following a petition signed by the majority of legislators.
House of Representatives Secretary-General Reginald Velasco told a plenary meeting of the lower house that more than two-thirds of lawmakers had endorsed a complaint seeking to remove Duterte from office.
“The total number of House members who verified and swore before me this impeachment complaint is 215 House members,” he said.
In the Philippines, an impeachment complaint requires at least one-third of support from the 306-member House of Representatives before it can be transmitted to the upper house, where the 23 senators would serve as jurors in a process that could result in Duterte’s removal from office and her lifetime disqualification from holding office.
“There is a motion to direct the secretary-general to immediately endorse to the Senate … the motion is approved. The secretary-general is so directed,” House Speaker Martin Romualdez said.
Duterte is the first sitting vice president to face impeachment in the country’s history. She has been embroiled in a row with Marcos, following the collapse of a powerful alliance between their families that brought them a landslide victory in the 2022 election.
She has faced at least four impeachment complaints by a number of legislators and activist groups over a range of issues, including a death threat that she publicly made against Marcos, his wife and the House speaker last year, betrayal of public trust, as well as misusing millions of dollars in public funds.
The daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte has consistently denied wrongdoing, describing the moves against her as a political vendetta.
She is expected to stay in office until the Senate delivers its judgment. A trial date has not yet been set.
