North Cotabato cops arrest suspected bomber

KORONADAL CITY -- Police
authorities in Kabacan, North Cotabato today announced the arrest of the
primary suspect in the Nov. 2014 bombing here that left a college student dead
and 17 others injured.

Senior
Inspector Ronnie Cordero, Kabacan town police chief, identified the suspect as
Gardo Usop, 49, also known as Gardo Sampulna, a resident of Sitio Lumayong,
Barangay Kayaga, Kabacan, North Cotabato.

Cordero said
Usop was arrested with the help of Barangay Kayaga chairperson Bong
Bacana. He did not resist arrest.

Usop was
facing murder and multiple frustrated murder charges before the sala of Judge
Alandrex Betoya of Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 16 who issued an arrest
warrant against Usop on April 20 last year.

BBriefly speaking
to reporters in North Cotabato District Jail where he was detained, Usop
vehemently denied the charges.

A powerful
improvised bomb was set off at the stairs of highway overpass in Poblacion
Kabacan on Nov. 16, 2014 that left Monique Mantawil, 19, Development
Communication Course student of University of Southern Mindanao (USM).

Police said suspect
had been identified based on witnesses’ accounts. Two of his alleged companions
remained at large.Usop was the second suspected arrested by police in connection with the blast. About 10 daysafter the Nov. 16 Kabacan bombing, police arrested Badrudin Abid, a resident of Purok Krislam, Barangay Poblacion, Kabacan.The North Cotabato police then saidAbid was arrested at a checkpoint in President Quirino, Sultan Kudarat around 3 p.m. on Nov. 25after almost a week-long close watch of the suspect with two other alleged cohorts.Former North Cotabato police director Supt. Danilo Peralta said Abid manufactured the 60 mm mortar into improvised bomb.Peralta said a policeinformant positively identified Abid as the one who put the bomb at the overpass of Kabacan which exploded at 6:45 p.m. of Nov. 16.