ZAMBOANGA CITY, 2 April 2004 — Immigration and military agents have detained four Arabic teachers from Turkey on suspicion that they were members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network, but an official said yesterday the arrests appeared to be a mistake.

Relatives of the Turkish nationals reported on Wednesday that the four were abducted, but a military spokesman said yesterday the four were arrested for investigation.

“(They) were arrested in Cotabato City by combined elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Bureau of Immigration. They are now undergoing tactical interrogation...,” Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero told Arab News.

The official did not identify the foreigners, but television cable news channel ANC named the four as Alpaslan Gul, Ismail Kocabiyik, Ahmed Kaya, and Mansour Omercikoglu.

ANC said the Turkish men were teachers at the Eeman Institute, a private Islamic school owned by Dato Zamzamin Ampatuan, chief of the government’s Office of the Muslim Affairs. Ampatuan denied the foreigners were terrorists. “They are not terrorists and they are helping us and the school. They are teachers,” he said in a television interview.

Ampatuan said the Turks have been working in Cotabato since 2001. He said he contacted the immigration chief to vouch for the Turks and was assured they will be released after interrogation by naval intelligence agents.

ANC showed several undated pictures of the Turkish men, who reportedly work as Arabic instructors for the Zamboanga City-based Filipino-Turkish Tolerance School, formerly the Al-Makdum University ran by Mohamad Jamal Khalifa, brother-in-law of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

Khalifa abandoned the Al-Makdum University in the 1990s after the Philippine military accused him of channeling funds to the Abu Sayyaf rebels, whose group is tied to Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya.

A Turkish foundation now runs the school, one of several it established across Asia. In February, the school slaughtered more than 400 heads of cattle and distributed meat to thousands of mostly poor Filipinos in the yearly observance of the Islamic festival Eid Al-Adha.

Omercikoglu, 30, is the director of the private school, according to his Filipino wife, Annie May. She said the agents did not even have a warrant of arrest, showing only a letter supposedly signed by Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr.

An immigration official, who refused to be identified, said the four were apparently arrested by mistake.