$5 million Marwan reward claimed in Philippines

By Hader Glang

ZAMBOANGA CITY

The $5 million bounty offered for information on one of Southeast Asia’s most wanted terrorist is being claimed by an American, local media said Monday.

Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, known as Marwan, had been on the FBI’s most wanted list until his death during a firefight with police commandos in southern Maguindanao province on Jan. 25.

A 56-year-old political consultant from California came forward last week to tell the Philippine Star newspaper that he tipped off the U.S. State Department, allowing the authorities to track Marwan to the township of Mamasapano.

The Star reported that Marcus Allen Frishman produced correspondence with the State Department, as well as a photocopy of a document purportedly carrying the letterhead of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a former rebel group that controls swathes of the southwestern Philippines and was involved in the battle during which Marwan died.

He claimed a lead he provided in March 2010 allowed the U.S. to track Marwan, a leading member of Jemaah Islamiyah, the group behind the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.

Marwan, a U.S.-trained engineer, is thought to have been in the southern Philippines since 2003, moving from place to place under the protection of insurgents he provided with training in bomb-making.

In 2007, a court in California indicted him for providing material support to terrorists.

Frishman said he was willing to testify before the Philippine Congress and pledged to share the reward money with two other men involved in tracing Marwan as well as providing some to the families of 44 police commandos killed in the Jan. 25 raid.

“You cannot be greedy,” he told the Star. “There’s a lot to go around.”

Earlier, GMA News reported that two members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, known as the MILF, could qualify for the reward.

The report quoted a source as saying the two MILF informants told the police where to find Marwan. The pair were present during the operation, wearing Special Action Force uniforms and are now being protected in a safe house, GMA added.

Philippine National Police spokesman Ch. Supt. Generoso Cerbo Jr. declined to comment on the report.

Earlier this month, the FBI confirmed Marwan’s death after matching DNA taken during the operation to his that of his brother, currently held at Guantanamo Bay. Police commandos had cut a finger from the bomber’s body after shooting him dead.