Manila police traces US embassy bomb threat call

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine police traced the phone call
that forced the U.S. embassy in Manila to close its doors to
the public for two days this week to a detainee at a city jail
in the capital, ABS-CBN television reported on Friday.

Quoting officials at Manila’s city jail, the television
station reported that a detainee — a Muslim convert facing
drug-trafficking charges — had called the U.S. embassy’s
switchboard on Monday to give information about a bomb plot.

“I couldn’t comment on that news report,” said embassy
spokesman Matthew Lussenhop. “As a long-standing policy, we
don’t make comment on any investigation involving a threat of
that nature.”

ABS-CBN television said investigators from the Manila
police and U.S. officials had interviewed the detainee to get
more details about an alleged plot to drive a truck bomb near
the embassy compound.

A police official, speaking to ABS-CBN, said the detainee
claimed he had been asked to assemble the bomb and had been
assured he would be freed from prison to carry out the task.
But he backed out when he was asked to drive the vehicle near
the U.S. mission.

There have been cases in the past in the Philippines of
prisoners escaping from prison, killing for a fee and then
returning to their cells.

On Wednesday, Philippine officials had pointed to communist
rebels as the main suspects in the security scare at the U.S.
embassy and six other foreign missions in Manila.

While Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita suggested the New
People’s Army rebels were behind the bomb threat to the U.S.
embassy, a senior police intelligence official speculated that
regional Muslim militants could be responsible.