One of the key witnesses in the August 5, 2010 bombing at the Zamboanga City International Airport has executed an affidavit saying he had no knowledge about the incident but was allegedly promised and initially paid by a top political figure of Sulu a large sum of money in exchange for admitting and signing an instant and prepared confession which implicated former congressman Munir Arbison of Sulu as one of the alleged three masterminds along with four other accomplices.

Meanwhile, an uncle of another principal witness has also executed an affidavit strongly denying that he was offered fifteen million pesos (P15,000,000) by Arbison and Hadji Maulana Omar as claimed by the witness in his implicating sworn statement.

Elarde Sawadjaan, 36, a fisherman and resident of Barangay Kulasi, Municipality of Maimbung, Sulu, said he suffered from a bothered and painful conscience and on September 4, 2010 he decided — as a true and faithful follower of Islam — to tell the truth regarding his supposed role in the airport explosion that killed two persons and wounded 24 others including Sulu Governor Sakur Tan.

In his three-page retracting affidavit dated September 7, 2010 subscribed and sworn to before Bienvenido P. Orillo, First Assistant City Prosecutor of Zamboanga City, Sawadjaan declared that Sulu Governor Tan allegedly paid him (Sawadjaan) two hundred thousand pesos (P200,000) after signing and swearing to his earlier statement dated September 1, 2010 before Fiscal Ricardo Cabaron, the Chief Prosecutor of Zamboanga City.

Sawadjaan narrated that his role in the case started on August 26, 2010 when while he was at home in Barangay Kulasi, his long time friend Hadjarun Sahidjuan, chairman of the adjacent Barangay Lantong and his wife Ruaida, on alleged instructions from the governor, had set out to locate and asked him to stand as witness in the Zamboanga airport bombing in exchange for P500,000.

Sawadjaan said, his supposed recruiter-friend had asked Gov. Tan one million pesos (P1,000,000) as witness fee but the governor, according to the recruiter, bargained to five hundred thousand pesos (P500,000).

For his part, a well-educated Hadji Nouh Daiman who has respectable college degree units to his credit, denied the confession of his nephew witness Adelzon Sappayani that he (Daiman) saw Arbison with former Sulu town mayors Najib Maldisa and Ahmad Nanoh, in an alleged meeting at the residence of Hji Maulana Omar in Barangay Sta. Catalina, Zamboanga City in 2008 to plan the alleged assassination of Gov. Tan. Arbison, Maldisa and Nanoh were named by Task Force Zamboanga International Airport (ZIA) as the alleged masterminds of the blast.

“The statements in paragraph 9 of his (Sappayani’s) affidavit are also UNTRUE. At no point in my entire life was I offered by Hadji Maulana Omar nor by Congressman Arbison nor by anyone to do illegal errands for them. Thus, the alleged offer by Hadji Maulana Omar of 15 MILLION is TOTALLY UNTRUE,” Daiman’s affidavit partly read which was sworn to before Fiscal Orillo on September 8, 2010.

The Davao City-based businessman Daiman further said: “The statement in Paragraph 14 of his (Sappayani’s) affidavit is TOTALLY UNTRUE. I was already in Davao City a very long time ago and I did not meet HADJI MAULANA OMAR, JOJOH ADAM, MUSIMAR ALIH, MUNIR HADJIRUL and certain ADDONG on May 2010, after the said (general) elections. The alleged meeting and conversations never took place.”

In an earlier press briefing, the police had also named Omar, Adam, Alih and Hadjirul as accomplices. A certain Addong Salahuddin was also implicated by Sappayani in his affidavit.

Meanwhile, Sawadjaan declared that he was earlier told by a certain Kerkar, allegedly working for Gov. Tan, to admit before the prosecutor the contents of his affidavit, the detailed contents of which was earlier preconceived and made ready for his signature without hisknowledge.

He said that Kerkar, along with a former barangay chairman from Maimbung municipality in Sulu, accompanied him in a van with the three other supposed principal witnesses for the filing of their affidavits at the office of the city prosecutor at about 11:00 am. on September 1, 2010.

The same circumstances also prevailed on the three other alleged witnesses in signing their respective affidavits, he claimed.

After filing their confessions, Sawadjaan said they (the four witnesses) were brought back to Gov. Tan’s residence in Zamboanga City and after taking lunch in the living room, they were each given P200.000, all in P1,000 bill. He was given first followed by the three other witnesses, he said.

He named the supposed three other principal witnesses as: Adelzon Sappayani, Ismael Abdulgafar Hassim and Edris Harris Asia. He added that he personally knows Hassim who is his uncle and Asia, his first cousin. — News Release