Three Islamic militants were sentenced yesterday to life imprisonment for a series of bomb attacks in Metro Manila on Dec. 30, 2000 that killed 22 people and left more than 100 injured.

Judge Cielito Mindaro-Grulla, of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 29, found Mukhlis Hadji Yunos and two alleged fellow Jemaah Islamiyah members Zainal Paks and Mohamad Amir, guilty of multiple murder, multiple frustrated murder and multiple attempted murder.

Aside from the prison term, they were also ordered each to pay civil indemnity, moral damages and temperate damages.

A fourth alleged Jemaah defendant, Fathur Roman Alghozi of Indonesia, escaped detention at Camp Crame police headquarters on July 14, 2003 along with Abu Sayyaf Group members Merand Abante, but was shot dead by government forces after a manhunt in Mindsayap, Cotabato, on Oct. 12.

Five coordinated bombings across the metropolis claimed 22 lives, 11 of them on a northbound train of the Light Rail Transit Authority at the Blumentritt station in Manila.

The LRT fatalities were listed as Kriselle Anne Acusin, Valentino Calaquian, Astid Eunice Canete, Rowena Chua, Romeo de Vera, Edmund Domondon, Gerardo Lim, Lynnette Narvaez, Jovelyn Ramos, Renato Sebastian and Roweno Tarlao; surviving victims were Donna Moira Velasquez, Anna Marie Velasquez, Donald Velasquez and Marianne Velasquez.

The judge found conspiracy at the time of the commission of the crime: “It is evident that there was unity of purpose in bombing LRT Vehicle no. 1037 and unity in the execution of such unlawful objective.”

President Arroyo praised Grulla’s guilty verdicts as “the fruit of effective coordinated efforts of law enforcement, prosecution and the court,” Malacañang spokesman Lorelei Fajardo said in a statement.

“This serves to reinforce our faith in our justice system. Our government will make sure that justice is served, that hateful ideology never triumphs, that peace-loving citizens are kept safe and that democracy continues to prosper,” she added.

National Police Chief Jesus Versoza welcomed the convictions, noting that he was intelligence head when Yunos was arrested at the Cagayan de Oro airport on May 25, 2003.

“Yunos had his whole body covered with plaster cast and disguised himself as a victim of a vehicular accident to avoid arrest,” he said, showing reporters a video of the bomber’s apprehension.

The three were spared lethal injection as Mrs. Arroyo had suspended the imposition of the capital punishment. But debarring death penalty did not declassify those crimes previously catalogued as “heinous.”

“The amendatory effects of Republic Act 9346 extend only to the application of the death penalty but not to the definition or classification of crimes. True, the penalties for heinous crimes have been downgraded under the aegis of the new law. Still, what remains is the recognition by law that such crimes, their abhorrent nature, constitute a special category by themselves,” said Grulla.

The court immediately issued a commitment order for their detention at the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City.

In the separate attacks, the first bomb exploded near the US Embassy on Roxas Boulevard and the third near a gasoline station on Edsa in Makati City, killing a policeman. The fourth and fifth bombs went off near the airport in Pasay City and a bus station in Cubao, Quezon City. Michael Caber, Romie A. Evangelista with AFP