2004 SuperFerry 14 Bombing - Investigation

Investigation

Despite claims from various terrorist groups, the blast was initially thought to have been an accident, caused by a gas explosion, and sabotage was ruled out initially.

However, stated Philippine media reports, at the marine board of inquiry hearing in late March, 2004, a safety supervisor with the ship’s owner, WG&A, testified that about 150 survivors told him an explosion took place in the tourist section around the general area of bunk 51. The Captain of the ferry, Ceferino Manzo, testified in the same hearing that the entire tourist section was engulfed in “thick black smoke smelled like gunpowder.” After divers righted the ferry, five months after it sank, they found evidence of a bomb blast. A man named Redondo Cain Dellosa, a Rajah Sulaiman Movement member, confessed to planting a bomb, triggered by a timing device, on board for the Abu Sayyaf guerrilla group. He held a ticket on the ferry for bunk 51B, where the bomb was placed, and disembarked before the ship’s departure.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced on October 11, 2004, that investigators had concluded that the explosion had been caused by a bomb. She said six suspects had been arrested in connection with the bombing and that the masterminds, Khadaffy Janjalani and Abu Sulaiman, were still at large. It was believed that Abu Sayyaf bombed Superferry 14 because the company that owned it, WG&A, did not comply with a letter demanding USD 1 million in protection money.

Read more about this topic:  2004 SuperFerry 14 Bombing