[Inquirer] Philippine police on Friday released video images of two men suspected of carrying out the New Year’s Eve mall bombing in Cotabato City that killed two people and injured 34 others.Police spokesman Oliver Enmodias showed media the images of the two suspects, each carrying a bag, as they entered the mall. The male suspects placed a bag next to the lotto outlet and baggage counter on the second floor of the mall minutes before an improvised explosive device blew up outside the mall around 1:50pm. Bomb experts later discovered an unexploded second bomb on the second floor.
Enmodias said, “[The images of the two suspects] were clearly captured by CCTV and we have strong evidence they were behind the bombing.”
Police have appealed to the public for help in locating the suspects, which came days before the holding of a plebiscite on a law that will give Muslims an autonomous homeland in Mindanao. Moro Islamic Liberation Front chair Murad Ebrahim condemned the attack, saying it was “an act of cowardice, inhuman and atrocious.”
Soccsksargen police director Eliseo Tam Rasco said the task force was still hunting seven cohorts of the suspects, three of them women. He did not reveal the cohorts’ roles in the blast.