ARMM police ask GPH-MILF ceasefire panel to probe, resolve "rescue" of detainee by Moro rebels

From the Philippine News Agency (Apr 24): ARMM police ask GPH-MILF ceasefire panel to probe, resolve "rescue" of detainee by Moro rebels

Police authorities in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on Thursday asked the joint government-Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) ceasefire committee to investigate an incident where MILF guerillas "rescued" a detainee and took away police firearms.

“We have put our pursuit operations on hold for the ceasefire mechanisms to work,” Chief Supt. Noel Delos Reyes, ARMM police regional director told reporters.

Delos Reyes also appealed to the central leadership of the MILF to censure the guerillas that forcibly took their detained relatives away from the policemen escorting them to Marawi City.

Moro rebels on Wednesday flagged down a police convoy along the Narciso Ramos Highway in Balindong, Lanao del Sur and set free their detained relatives the policemen were to bring to the provincial jail in Marawi City.

Delos Reyes has tagged a local band of MILF guerillas as behind the attack.

The armed men, at gunpoint also took away the firearms of the policemen before they fled to a nearby hinterland, along with their relatives.

Members of the Picong municipal police were to bring their detained relatives to Marawi City a day after he was arrested for illegal possession of firearms.

“The offenders were caught by our men at a checkpoint in Picong a day before the incident,” Delos Reyes said.

Among those the MILF rebels had set free was a woman.

The "rescued" detainees were caught carrying guns last Tuesday while passing through a police checkpoint along a highway in Picong, a coastal town in the second district of Lanao del Sur.

“It is the job of policemen to arrest people carrying guns without proper authorization from concerned government agencies,” Delos Reyes said.

Late last year, MILF rebels had sprung a detained relative from the Marawi City police office, and kidnapped the city’s police chief whom they used as “shield” to prevent pursuing soldiers and policemen from closing in.

The kidnapped police officer was released without any ransom about ten hours later through the intercession of local officials, among them Marawi City Mayor Fahad Salic and Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr.

There was no word as yet from the joint ceasefire committee of the GPH and MILF, Delos Reyes said.

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