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Wife of Indonesian terror suspect ordered deported


By Tetch Torres
INQ7.net, Associated Press
Last updated 03:19pm (Mla time) 10/18/2006


(UPDATE) THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) has ordered the wife of a top Indonesian militant deported for illegally entering the Philippines, officials said.

Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr. said Istiada Binti Omar Sovie, wife of Dulmatin, one of Asia's most wanted terror suspects who is believed to be hiding on southern Jolo island, will be banned from re-entering the country.

"She will be deported as soon as we have secured the necessary clearances from the courts and police," Fernandez said.

He added that Sovie will also be placed on the immigration blacklist, barring her from returning to the country.

BI special prosecutor Maria Antonette Bucasas said the deportation order stemmed from Sovie’s admission that she “illegally and surreptitiously” entered the southern Philippines from Malaysia in August 2003.

Sovie also admitted that she brought along her five children and that all of them do not have any travel documents, Bucasas said.

"She also confessed that she did not pass through the required inspection or processing by immigration authorities; hence she is both an undocumented and overstaying alien," Bucasas said.

Sovie, who was arrested in Sulu with her two sons on October 3, is in the custody of the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The children will be deported back to Indonesia with her.

Faizal Hussin, the bureau's immigration chief, said Sovie’s admission that she and her husband were members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror group was an additional reason for deportation.

The woman has told investigators that her husband and at least six other Jemaah Islamiyah operatives were training local insurgents how to make bombs, officials said.

The operatives in the Philippines included Indonesians Dulmatin and Umar Patek, suspected plotters of the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 people, the officials quoted Dulmatin's wife as saying.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez has said Sovie told him that Dulmatin would never surrender and would fight to the death.

The US has offered a US$10 million reward for the capture of Dulmatin and US$1 million for Patek.