Manila Security forces arrested a Filipino-Muslim for his alleged involvement in the beheading of ten Philippine Marines in the south in 2007, a police report said.
Abdul Pattah Esmail also known as Patah Hamjak was alone when arrested in the lair of the Abu Sayyaf group at Riverside Village, Isabela City, Basilan at 1.40am yesterday.
"Those who arrested him knew how he looked like," Chief Superintendent Ramon Estilles, police head of the region, said in a radio interview.
"I believe he is a high ranking active member of the Abu Sayyaf group because of the number of high-profile incidents he was involved with," Estilles said, adding that Esmail was brought for tactical interrogation by intelligence units of the police in Basilan. Those who gave information on Esmail's whereabouts that led to his arrest were placed under the government's witness protection programme, he added.
The arrest was made through a combined operation of the Philippine Navy and the Philippine National Police's (PNP) Special Action Force (SAF) and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, PNP Spokesman chief supt Agrimero Cruz Jr,said.
Jailbreak
Esmail was one of the members of the Abu Sayyaf group that was behind the beheading of ten Marines in Al Barkah, Basilan, in June 2007, Cruz said.
Esmail also took part in a jailbreak to rescue Dan Laksaw Asnawi in Basilan in 2009, said Cruz, adding that Asnawi, a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), was identified as the mastermind in the killing of government soldiers in Al Barka in 2011.
