A Filipino citizen accused of funding the foiled terror plot in New York is an orthopaedic surgeon previously based in Marawi City in the Philippines, where armed groups linked with Islamic State have staged a bloody battle for more than four months.
Suspect Russell Salic is highly educated and well-connected. The mayor of Marawi City, Majul Gandamra, said he used to have links to the Amai Pakpak medical center, one of the most advanced hospitals in a region known for its poverty. The hospital was among the first facilities attacked by Isis-linked groups when the conflict erupted on 23 May.
The US government has accused Salic of sending $423 to fund a foiled jihadist plot to attack targets in New York, including concert venues, subway stations and Times Square. A Philippines government investigator, lawyer Abdul Jamal Dimaporo of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), said Salic admitted sending the money but claimed it was for charity and did not know it was used to purchase bomb materials.
Philippine authorities have also charged Salic with involvement in the kidnapping and beheading last year of sawmill workers near Marawi by the terrorist group behind the siege of the city. He denies the charges and that trial is ongoing.
Gandamra said he issued Salic with a certificate of good moral character this year. “His sister went to my office to secure a certification for purposes of a clearance for good behaviour. He used to work with my wife. She was also a doctor in Amai Pakpak,” said Gandamra.
Later, Salic surrendered to Philippine authorities amid a crackdown on suspected extremists in Marawi. The mayor said he was surprised to learn about his alleged links to radical extremists.
The latest revelations underscore the role of Marawi and the Philippines in supporting the operations of Isis, particularly via privileged personalities in local communities that have been shown to be susceptible to radicalisation. The Maute terrorist group is led by one of the area’s affluent and politically connected families and is responsible for the situation in Marawi. Their friends did not suspect their links with extremists until authorities exposed them.
One of Salic’s co-defendants in the New York plot, Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, was arrested after travelling from Canada in May 2016 to carry out the attacks. He pleaded guilty in October that year but the case was sealed while the investigation continued.
According to criminal complaints, Bahnasawy, 19, told an undercover FBI agent “[t]hese Americans need an attack”, and that he wanted to “create the next 9/11”. He sent the agent an image of Times Square and said: “We seriously need to car-bomb Times Square. Look at these crowds of people!”
In another message, he said he wanted to “shoot up concerts cuz they kill a lot people … We just walk in with guns in our hands. That’s how Paris guys did it,” the papers said in an apparent reference to the 2015 attack on the Bataclan concert hall in the French capital that killed 89 people.
A third suspect, Talha Haroon, was arrested in Pakistan and is awaiting extradition to the US. A US Department of Justice statement said: “Communicating through internet messaging applications, these three men allegedly plotted to conduct bombings and shootings in heavily populated areas of New York City during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in 2016, all in the name of Isis.”
General Eduardo Año, chief of the Philippines armed forces, alleges Salic has been providing funds to suspected terrorists from 2014 to 2016.
“He was involved in terror activities by providing funds and donations to suspected terrorists in the Middle East, US, and Malaysia from 2014 to 2016. He has been under watch and surveillance for his suspicious activities in coordination with allied foreign intelligence agencies,” Año said.
The military chief said Salic sent the money to a suspected bomb maker in the US, an American citizen living in Ohio. “All along he has been very much aware that he was in the network of providing funds to extremists,” claimed Año.
Dimaporo said Salic denied involvement with Isis and would seek to clear his name.
The local case is expected to complicate a US request to extradite Salic. Chief state counsel Ricardo Paras told Associated Press the Philippines would have to decide if it wanted him to face criminal complaints in Manila first.
Carmela Fonbuena Fonbuena is a senior reporter at Rappler.com