A Philippine court has convicted a man for a daring 2007 motorcycle bombing that killed a Muslim rebel-turned-congressman and three other people and wounded 10, including two legislators.
Judge Ralph Lee of the Regional Trial Court Branch 83 on Friday convicted Ikram Indama but acquitted two other key suspects in the Nov. 13, 2007, bombing that killed Rep. Wahab Akbar as he walked out of a lobby at the House of Representatives.
Indama, who has links to Muslim militants, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to a copy of Lee's decision.
Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Peter Ong said that Indama, a cousin of a notorious Abu Sayyaf extremist commander in the country's south, brought the motorcycle laden with a bomb and was identified through closed circuit television.
FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 19, 2007, file photo, left to right; from right, suspects Adnam Kusain, Ikram Indama and Caidar Aunal linked to the blast at the House of Representatives are lined up at the Department of Justice in Manila, Philippines. from right, Adnam Kusain, Ikram Indama and Caidar Aunal. A Philippine court has convicted Indama of multiple murders in the motorcycle bomb attack that killed a Muslim rebel-turned-congressman and three other people and wounded 10, including two legislators. Kusain and Aundal were acquitted of their charges in the case. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, FIle)
Ong said the attackers had also plotted to kill Akbar before, including the previous day, but he was absent from the lower house.
Former Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan, who survived the bombing with leg and back wounds, head burns and a shattered ear drum, welcomed the conviction but said government investigators should continue efforts to identify the other suspects involved in the attack.
"We should not be content with just being told that the one who planted the bomb in the motorcycle has been taken in," Ilagan said by phone. "The next question is, who ordered him to do so and what was the motive?"
Ilagan, now a social welfare undersecretary, recalled that she was about to board her van from the lobby when "a flash of light illuminated the area followed by a loud, loud explosion that forced me and my aide like a strong wind." Her driver died and she later realized she was hit when she felt her leg was bloodied as she lay in the darkness.
Akbar was reportedly among the original leaders of the Abu Sayyaf extremist group when it was established in the late 1980s on the southern island of Basilan. He later had a falling out with the militants, was elected Basilan governor and backed U.S.-backed offensives in his province against the militants, who are notorious for bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.
As governor, Akbar had been blamed for a brutal crackdown against Abu Sayyaf militants, who had plotted to retaliate against him, anti-terrorism authorities said.
The Abu Sayyaf has been blacklisted by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organization.
Akbar also headed a political dynasty that has long ruled Basilan, a poor, predominantly Muslim province that, under him, became a showcase of U.S.-assisted war on terrorism at the time. His political rivals were among the suspects in his killings but were later cleared by the court.
Three other suspects, Hajarun Jamiri, Benjamin Hataman and former police officer Bayan Judda, remain at large and are the targets of a police search, the court said.
Aside from threats posed by Abu Sayyaf gunmen, the southern Philippines has also faced intense political and clan rivalries that are often accompanied by bloodshed and assassinations.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s air force claimed Friday it shot down a Russian strategic bomber, but Moscow officials said the plane crashed in a sparsely populated area due to a malfunction after a combat mission.
Neither claim could be independently verified. Previous Ukrainian claims of shooting down Russian warplanes during their more than two-year war have met with silence or denials from Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russian missiles struck cities in the central Dnipro region of Ukraine, killing eight people, including a 14-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy, and injuring 28, local officials said.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated Kyiv officials’ almost daily appeals for more Western air defense systems, again drawing a parallel with how Israel blunted a recent Iranian attack.
Missile and drone attacks can be thwarted, he wrote on social platform X: “This has been demonstrated in the skies over the Middle East, and it should also work in Europe."
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba added: “Children must not be killed in airstrikes in modern Europe.”
Russia’s air force is vastly more powerful than Ukraine’s, but sophisticated missile systems provided by Kyiv’s Western partners are a major threat to Russian aviation as the Kremlin’s forces slowly push forward along the around 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line in what has become a grinding war of attrition. Ukrainian officials say they expect a major Russian offensive in the summer.
Ukraine said the air force and military intelligence cooperated to bring down the Tu-22M3 bomber with anti-aircraft missiles. Russia commonly uses the bomber to fire Kh-22 cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets from inside its own airspace. The plane can also carry nuclear warheads.
The Russian defense ministry said the warplane crashed “in a deserted area” in the southern region of Stavropol, hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Three crew members were rescued after ejecting from the aircraft, and the search for a fourth is taking place, according to the ministry. But Stavropol Gov. Vladimir Vladimirov said one of the rescued pilots died.
On Christmas Eve, Ukraine claimed to have shot down two Russian fighter jets. In January, the Ukrainian air force said it shot down a Russian early warning and control plane and a key command center aircraft that relays information to troops on the ground, in what appeared to be a significant blow for the Kremlin’s forces. The next month, Ukraine said it knocked out another early warning and control plane.
Also in January, Moscow accused Kyiv of shooting down a Russian military transport plane that was carrying Ukrainian POWs who were headed for a prisoner swap.
Russian forces overnight conducted a combined aerial attack with the use of 22 missiles of various types and 14 Shahed drones during the night, the Ukrainian air force said. All the drones and 15 of the missiles were intercepted, it said.
The attack hit urban areas as well as train infrastructure in the Dnipro region, Ukraine’s National Railway Operator said. Among those killed in the strikes was employee Oksana Storozhenko, the mother of two teenage sons, it said.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, rescuers and ambulance workers carry a person on the scene of a Russian attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Friday, April 19, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP Photo)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, rescuers work on the scene of a building damaged after a Russian attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Friday, April 19, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP Photo)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, rescuers and ambulance workers carry a person on the scene of a Russian attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Friday, April 19, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP Photo)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, rescuers and ambulance workers carry a person at the scene of a Russian attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Friday, April 19, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP Photo)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, local residents leave an apartment building, damaged after a Russian attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Friday, April 19, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP Photo)
