DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 16, 2008) – Philippine police filed criminal charges against a man linked to a grenade attack that killed three people in the southern province of Compostela Valley.
Police tagged Joel Avila, a tricycle driver, as behind the July 3 attack that also wounded 12 people in Nabunturan town. It said witnesses positively identified Avila as the attacker.
The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group said it filed criminal charges on Tuesday, but Avila remains at-large and that policemen were tracking him down. It said the attack was connected to a quarrel between two groups of tricycle drivers operating in the town.
The Philippine military earlier implicated the New People’s Army rebels as behind the grenade attack. “It was the handiwork of the New People's Army rebels,” Captain Michael Aquino, of the 10th Infantry Division, told the Mindanao Examiner. "We have reports saying that the attack targeted the 'habal-habal' drivers in the area because the NPA suspected them as government spies."
Rigoberto Sanchez, a rebel spokesman, denied involvement of the NPA in the blast. “There is no tinge of truth to this. The enemy is just manufacturing stories to divert attention from the successive and successful tactical offensives by the NPA. The revolutionary forces condemn this criminal attack against civilians,” he said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.
The NPA is fighting the past four decades for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. Rebel leaders broke off peace talk with the Arroyo government in 2004 after accusing Manila of reneging on its commitment to free all political prisoners and to put a stop to political killings, among others. (Romy Bwaga)
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