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Manila: A suspected Bali bomber was arrested on Boracay Island, the popular tourist resort in central Philippines, a newspaper reported.
Bomb attacks in Bali, Indonesia, killed 200 people in 2002.
Authorities seized Mohammad Bani, an Indonesian national, on March 8, army spokesman Ernesto Torres told the Standard.
He has undergone interrogation at the army headquarters in Fort Bonifacio in Makati after he was brought to Manila, said Torres.
Another Indonesian, Al-Midzbar Bunajal, 24, was also arrested with Bani, said Torres, adding that both Bani and Bunajal are "certified members" of the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian conduit of the Al Qaida terror network.
Bani was arrested after an arrest warrant was issued by a lower court in suburban Pasig City, said Torres, adding that Bani was suspected to have joined the Abu Sayyaf Group that had kidnapped 20 foreigners, including American missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham, at the Dos Palmas beach resort in Palawan, in southwestern Philippines on May 21, 2001.
Mrs Burnham survived but her husband was killed in a botched rescue operation in Zamboanga del Sur in 2002.
Meanwhile, Bani's brother Mahdi complained that the arrested suspect was given electric shocks during interrogation.
"He complained about this when I visited him on March 17," said the brother.
It is 'not our policy'
Torres denied the allegation saying, "It's not our policy to violate the rights of detainees." It was the first time that a suspected JI member was reported to have stayed in the southern Philippines in 2001.
Analysts said this could show that they were in the southern Philippines prior to the Bali bombing.
Early intelligence reports said that JI members started coming to the southern Philippines with the help of the Abu Sayyaf Group in 2003.
The Abu Sayyaf Group has been blamed for bombing, kidnap-for-ransom activities and other terror attacks in the south and in Metro Manila.
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