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Terror Networks
Philippines still working on Passport Man
2002-02-11
  • Philippine immigration officials believe they have uncovered a large terrorist operation that uses Manila as a spring board to other South-east Asian countries after interrogating a Malaysian arrested at the airport with 104 questionable passports. Azmi bin Salleh, 36, was arrested on Friday at the Manila International Airport while he was about to board a Kuwait Airways plane bound for Kuwait via Bangkok. Azmi was being investigated by the police for being a possible finance officer of the Al-Qaeda network. Several names found in Azmi's cellular phone were in the Interpol list of wanted terrorists. Officials were still interrogating Azmi about the names in his cellular phone to determine if the wanted terrorists are still in the Philippines.

    Conflicting statements by the suspect on his purpose of coming to Manila strengthened suspicions that the Malaysian could be a member of a terrorist group. On Friday, Azmi was stopped from boarding his plane when security officials manning an X-ray machine at the departure zone of the airport found images of several travel documents bound with rubber bands. They searched his bag and found 104 passports and US$57,250. Azmi claimed he was working for a travel agency, and that the documents and money were meant to pay for Saudi visas for his clients who want to join the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. But a check found that the purported travel agency was non-existent.
    This could be some poor schmuck who runs a Mom-and-Pop unregistered travel agency being in the wrong place at the wrong time. On the other hand, that'd make real good cover for an al-Qaeda courier. The fact that he has difficulty keeping his story straight suggests the latter, rather than the former. On still another hand, he's a married man, and he was scheduled for a layover in Bangkok and had $57,000 in cash... Damn. I'd lie, too. ("Of course not, honey. Didn't even leave the airport. Yeah, the expenses were high this trip. Barely broke even...")

    Passport Man cleared, kicked out of PI
  • Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo said that investigators were now satisfied that Azmi was a travel agent trying to get visas for Malaysian Muslims wanting to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. She said Azmi had admitted under questioning that he was a sympathizer of bin Laden but was found to have "no direct knowledge or involvement with the activities of the al-Qaeda terror group".

    Domingo said Azmi would be deported to Malaysia soon because he was trying to take 50,000 dollars out of the country and "not for being a terrorist". Philippine customs law sets a 10,000 dollar limit on the amount of foreign currency allowed to be taken out of the country.

    Chief Inspector Winnie Quidato, the bureau's chief legal investigator, said Azmi was trying to circumvent regulations that limit visas for Saudi Arabia to only one percent of population per country by arranging visas for his Malaysian clients from the Philippines. The scheme however did not work because the Saudi government does not grant visa to applicants from third countries. "This forced Salleh to try his luck in Thailand but he was intercepted at the airport before he could fly to Bangkok," Quidato said.
    Uhuh. Suspicion confirmed. Now he has to face The Little Woman when he gets home:
    "I work and I slave and I give you the best years of my life, and what do you do? You go flying around to Manila and you manage to get yourself arrested! My mother was right, you're a small-timer, Azmi."
    "But honey, I was just..."
    "Don't touch me! You want that, you can go visit your hussies in Bangkok!"
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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