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Isulan bombing suspect falls

By Edwin Fernandez

August 5, 2019, 3:49 pm

<p>Google map of Isulan, Sultan Kudarat province.</p>

Google map of Isulan, Sultan Kudarat province.

ISULAN, Sultan Kudarat – Acting on intelligence information, police and military authorities arrested on Saturday one of the suspects in the roadside bombing here last year that killed three people.

Tutin Kuti, 27, was tagged as one of the two men responsible in setting off an improvised bomb in front of several “ukay-ukay” (second-hand clothing) stalls along the national highway in Barangay Kalawag 3 in the August 28, 2018 bombing, said Lt. Colonel Junny Buenacosa, Isulan town police chief.

Buenacosa said the suspect is believed to be a member of the Islamic State-linked Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

Three persons, including a seven-year-old boy, were killed while 38 others were injured in the attack, which occurred as the town was preparing for its foundation anniversary celebration.

In a radio interview Monday, Buenacosa said the suspect was arrested by joint police and military forces at his residence in Barangay Madia, Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

“Based on witnesses’ accounts, Kuti was allegedly one of the two young men who left a backpack with an improvised bomb under a parked motorcycle in front of the “Ukay-Ukay” stalls that went off at about 7 p.m. on that ill-fated day,” the police official said.

A second bombing allegedly perpetrated by the same group also ripped through an internet café in Barangay Kalawag 2, Isulan that killed two persons and injured a dozen others on Sept 2, 2018.

Buenacosa said Kuti was also linked to the March 2016 foiled roadside bombing here during a town-wide civic-military parade. Kuti was arrested based on a warrant for multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder issued by Regional Trial Court Judge Lorenzo Balo. (PNA)

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