Marwanbelieved by the FBI to a member of southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah’s central commandhad previously been falsely reported dead after a raid by Philippine security forces in 2012.
But preliminary results from the tests showed a link with a known relative of Marwan, said David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
While the testing could not yet provide “absolute identification,” he said, “the results do support that the biological sample provided by Philippine authorities came from Marwan.”
Marwan’s brother, Rahmat bin Hir, is in a California prison following a 2007 arrest for conspiracy to provide “material support to terrorists.”
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CNN’s Arlene Samson-Espiritu contributed to this report.
