Woman admits bombing plan

From the Manila Standard Today (Dec 18): Woman admits bombing plan

Evidence. Philippine National Police presented to journalists the improvised explosive device and the backpack that were found in the possession of Malaysian Mohammad Noor Fikrie, who was killed by the police after he threathed to detonate the bomb that he was carrying with his Filipina wife Annabelle Lee. Lower photo shows police bomb disposal experts trying to defuse the bomb after Fikrie was shot dead at a restaurant in Davao City. (Police photos)

The wife of the suspected terrorist who was killed by police while trying to detonate a bomb in Davao City admitted that she and her husband were planning to attack a passenger bus to extort money from its owners, police officials said on Monday. But Davao City police chief Senior Superintendent Ronald dela Rosa said he doubted the statement of Annabelle Nieva Lee, a native of Sorsogon who had converted to Islam, and said the couple may have had a bigger plan.

The police chief said Lee and her husband Mohammad Noor Fikrie, a suspected Malaysian terrorist who belonged to the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group, were targeting foreign aid workers or a packed Catholic church as part of a terrorist mission.Dela Rosa said security forces have raised their alert levels and intensified security and intelligence gathering afer the incident.

Police sources said the police were already aware of Fikrie’s presence in Davao because he was already being surveilled in Cotabato City. Fikrie left Malaysia on April 27 and stayed in the cities of Zamboanga and Cotabato before proceeding here. Fikrie was killed on Friday by the police in front of a hotel in Davao City after he allegedly threatened to detonate a bomb hidden in his knapsack. As the couple was checking out, Fikrie tried to grab the backpack that Lee was holding containing a homemade bomb. Officers, meanwhile, tried to seize the man, who broke free and threatened to detonate the device. “You want the bomb? You want the bomb? Shoot me! Shoot me! I will explode the bomb,” de la Rosa quoted the man as saying, prompting the police and people in the hotel lobby to scamper out for safety.

Fikrie and Lee then ran into the street, where they hugged each other as the man raised a cellphone, threatening to use it to trigger the bomb, de la Rosa said. The man grabbed the backpack from his wife and ran toward a park full of Friday night revelers, leaving the woman, who was taken into custody by police, he said. Guards locked the park’s gate, and the man, still raising his hand that held the cellphone, ran into a packed restaurant, where a sniper shot him twice in the chest. The man did not immediately fall, so other officers fired at him and killed him, de la Rosa said.

The bomb was fashioned from a 60 mm mortar shell that was subsequently defused by SWAT’s ordnance team, he said. Police saidf Fikrie was trained by Umar Patek, a terror leader who figured in the Jakarta attack on Christmas eve 2000 where 19 people were killed, and the October 2002 Bali attacks that had 202 people dead. Patek was sentenced last November by an Indonesian court to 20 years in prison.

 http://manilastandardtoday.com/2012/12/18/woman-admits-bombing-plan/