Wanted man nabbed for grenade, drugs in Maguinanao
Local News • 15:32 PM Sat Aug 18, 2018
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By:
Edwin O. Fernandez
AMPATUAN, Maguindanao – Police and
anti-narcotics operatives arrested here Saturday afternoon a man wanted for
peddling illegal drugs and seized suspected shabu and hand grenade from him.
Director Juvenal Azurin of Philippine Drug
Enforcement Agency in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-ARMM)
identified the suspect as Alimudin Franco Baliwan, 38, jobless and a resident
of Barangay Poblacion, Ampatuan.
Azurin said Baliwan was previously charged for drug
peddling in 2014 but he remained at large. A warrant of arrest for violation of
Republic Act 9165 (Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002) was issued
against him by Judge Bansawan Ibrahim of Regional Trial Court Branch 13 in
Cotabato City.
Backed by elements of Maguindanao Police provincial
office, PNP mobile force and elements of the Army’s First Mechanized Infantry
Battalion, PDEA-ARMM agents went to the house of Baliwan to serve the arrest
warrant.
The surprised Baliwan did not resist arrest, Azurin
said.
He was in our list of high value target drug
personalities in the region, Azurin said, adding that his arrest was a product
of two weeks of covert surveillance operations in Ampatuan.
Azurin said the agents recovered from Baliwan a
fragmentation grenade, a huge sachet of shabu and a mobile phone believed to be
used by Baliwan in his illegal transaction. Charges for violation of RA 9165 and RA 9516
(Illegal Possession of Explosives) are being prepared for filing against the
suspect now under the custody of PDEA ARMM detention facility.