World

Blast Rips Manila Law Agency

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

August 13, 1999 / 6:00 AM EDT / CBS

A mysterious blast tore through the Manila offices of the Philippines' National Bureau of Investigation on Friday, destroying pone building and damaging another. At least eight people were killed and 11 were injured, witnesses and police said.

Â"A big and thunderous blastÂ" hit central Manila at 12:45 a.m., bureau officer on duty Rodrigo Mapoy said.

Two smaller explosions and a fire followed, wrecking the bureau's one-story investigation offices where suspects are questioned and contraband Â– such as narcotics, arms and ammunition Â– seized from suspects are stored.

The bureau's five-story national headquarters, adjacent to the investigation office bungalows, was damaged and its windows shattered, witnesses said. The bureau is the domestic equivalent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

There was no immediate word on what caused the initial explosion. Police said the subsequent blasts might have come from stored arms and ammunition.

Â"We are doing everything to find out what happened,Â" bureau director Federico Opinion told a local radio station.

He said the blasts centered on an area occupied by the Special Investigations Unit, an elite force running a campaign against drug trafficking and gun running.

Soil samples from the crater, twisted metal and other debris were submitted to the NBI laboratory to determine the type of explosive involved, said senior inspector Orlando Ramilo, chief of the Manila police bomb squad.

Local radio stations said about 100 weapons were recovered from the debris, presumably from seizures, and the remnants of hand grenades. Stacks of bullets were also found.

The initial explosion was so powerful that body parts were found on the roof of the main bureau building, a detective said.

The dead included a suspected drug dealer who had just been arrested, a woman, at least two bureau officers and two other investigators, police said. The other bodies were mutilated by the blasts and fire and have not been identified, they said.

Mapoy said one of the dead was a bureau lawyer.

Police said they were unsure if a bomb had been thrown at the building or if something exploded inside.

An elevated metro railway runs along a busy avenue just outside the bureau compound and some investigators said an explosive could have been hurled from there.

Director Opinion said the bureau received a threat after the explosions that a bomb had been placed in the main headquarters. The offices were searched, but nothing was found.

Several explosions or fires, often deliberately set, have destroyed evidence in court buildings, police agencies and elsewhere in the Philippines in recent years.