BARMM cops verifying link of drug peddler's group in murder of ex-Jolo cop chief Col. Annayo
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 15:45 PM Mon Mar 15, 2021
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By:
John M. Unson
An investigator examines the shabu seized from Ejek Abduhalim. (From PDEA-BARMM)
COTABATO CITY --- It was relatives of the large-scale shabu dealer busted in a P20.4 million shabu deal in Jolo, Sulu on Sunday who gave him away.
Juvenal Azurin, director of the Philippine Drug-Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said Monday Ejek Abdulhalim, entrapped in Jolo noontime Sunday, shall be prosecuted for violation of Republic Act 9165, or the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2022.
Azurin and Brig. Gen. Samuel Rodriguez, director of the Bangsamoro regional police, separately told reporters Abdulhalim was entrapped with the help of relatives.
Officials of the Bangsamoro regional police are now verifying Abdulhalim’s possible link with the group that killed former Jolo police chief Lt. Col. Walter Annayo in Sultan Mastura, Maguindanao on November 21, 2020.
Annayo, while in Jolo for a number of months until his transfer in August last year to the Bangsamoro regional police headquarters in Maguindanao, repeatedly hit the news for his extensive anti-narcotics campaign in the municipality, the capital of Sulu island province.
Personnel of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in the Bangsamoro region confirmed in February that two of the suspects in the murder of Annayo in Sultan Mastura town near Cotabato City, Rasul Nahang Radja and Nara Kagatan Asula, are from Jolo and are both into large-scale distribution of shabu in their province.
Azurin said Abdulhalim was arrested after selling three kilos of shabu, valued at P20.4 million, to non-uniformed agents during a sting at almost noontime Sunday in Jolo, capital town of Sulu.
Sulu is a bastion of the Abu Sayyaf terror group that has a reputation for beheading captives if ransom demands are not met and for coddling large-scale shabu distributors who share earnings from their deals.
Azurin said the operation that resulted in the entrapment of Abdulhalim was assisted by agents from PDEA-9 and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and combined personnel of the Sulu provincial police, the Jolo municipal police and the Army’s 35th Infantry Battalion.
Azurin said they are certain Abdulhalim is linked to a big narcotics syndicate operating in BARMM’s adjoining Sulu and Tawi-Tawi island provinces.