Dec 16, 2009 - 10:22

Philippines says arrests Islamic militant at airport

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine law enforcement agents arrested on Wednesday an Islamic militant, with ties to the al Qaeda network, indicted in the United States for his role in the kidnapping of an American missionary in 1993, officials said.

Government agents nabbed Abdul Basir Latip, suspected to be among the organisers of the Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf, after he arrived at the Manila International Airport from Jakarta. He was later whisked to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) office.

"He was arrested on the request of the U.S. embassy here," Ricardo Diaz, head of the NBI's counter terrorism unit, told reporters, showing a letter from the U.S. embassy's legal attache seeking help for Latip's arrest.

"The U.S. State Department has also offered $1.5 million bounty for his capture," Diaz said, adding the arrest team was armed with a warrant issued by the Interpol.

Latip was indicted by a Washington court in 2007 for his role in the kidnapping of Charles Walton, a Protestant missionary working as a linguist on the remote southern Philippine island of Jolo in 1993, Diaz said.

Latip served as the kidnappers' spokesman. Walton was freed after ransom was paid.

"I am not an Abu Sayyaf member," Latip said, protesting his arrest after he was paraded to reporters at the NBI office. He later admitted being friends with Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, who organised the Abu Sayyaf, and for using an alias in his passport.

Janjalani, an Islamic preacher who saw action in Afghanistan and founded the Abu Sayyaf group in the southern Philippines in 1990, was killed in an encounter with police in 1998.

Philippine authorities said Latip helped Janjalani organise the small but violent Abu Sayyaf, blamed for the country's worst militant attack, the February 2004 bombing of a ferry near Manila Bay that killed 100 people.

(Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Rosemarie Francisco and Bill Tarrant)

Reuters