2002 Davao City Evergreen Hotel explosion

Evergreen Hotel explosion

Davao City Davao City (Philippines)
Date	May 16, 2002
Location	Evergreen Hotel, Davao City, Philippines
Coordinates	7°04′27″N 125°37′26″E
Non-fatal injuries	1

The Evergreen Hotel explosion took place on May 16, 2002 in Davao City, Philippines. 67-year-old hotel guest Michael Meiring was severely injured and had to have one of his legs amputated. Although Meiring initially claimed an assailant had thrown a grenade, the blast was determined to have been caused by explosives Meiring was storing inside his room at the hotel. Despite facing criminal charges, a few days later Meiring was spirited out of the country by individuals claiming to be American federal agents. The mysterious circumstances of the explosion and Meiring dramatic escape has fueled conspiracy theories that he was involved in a covert "false flag" operation.

Background

Born in 1935, Meiring was a former citizen of South Africa who moved to the United States of America towards the end of the Apartheid regime in the early 1990's, eventually settling in Calimesa, California. He reportedly practiced medicine for the South African police and was affiliated with the African National Congress.

Meiring allegedly came to the Philippines to work as a treasure hunter, and secured permits from the Fidel Ramos administration to hunt for Yamashita's gold in sunken American and Japanese ships. Meiring set up a company named 'Parousia International Trading', which listed the phone and fax numbers of the Evergreen hotel on Ramon Magsaysay Avenue in Davao City on its business records. Meiring had been a frequent visitor at the hotel for the previous 10 years, and would often stay in the Mindanao region for 6 months at a time.

David Hawthorn, a close friend of Meiring, claimed that his friend confessed to giving a box of US currency to the South African government. The box was one of 12, each estimated to contain $500 million. Meiring later partnered with a Manila-based group that had links to James Rowe. According to American intelligence analyst Dan Crawford, Rowe was linked to a Nevada white supremacist and tax revolt group that had connection the Neo-Nazi Party in the United States and the Fifth Reich group of Germany. Meiring's American friends suspected that the Manila group conspired against him.

Evergreen Hotel explosion

On December 14, 2001, Meiring checked into Room 305 at the Evergreen Hotel in the Poblacion District of downtown Davao City. Meiring was observed to carry two padlocked metal boxes up to his room, and he warned hotel staff not to touch them or to use any chemicals while cleaning his room. On May 16, 2002, an explosion occurred inside Meiring's hotel room, causing extensive injuries to his lower legs. Meiring told first responders that a man had thrown a grenade into his room. Although the origin of the blast was initially suspected to have been due to an accidental detonation of dynamite, authorities subsequently determined that an improvised explosive device using a primary explosive charge consisting of ammonium nitrate was the most likely cause. Meiring was thereafter rushed to the Davao Doctors Hospital after he sustained third-degree burns, and had a leg amputated due to his injuries.

On May 19, 2002, agents from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reportedly forcibly removed Meiring from Davao Doctors Hospital and then flew him to Manila on a Learjet chartered from Subic Air, allegedly arranged by the US Embassy in Manila. By May 22, he was confined at the Makati Medical Center. Meiring's insurance did not cover the American's bills at the Davao Medical Center, and Makati Medical Center was one of only two hospitals accredited by Miering’s medical insurance, which is the reported reason for his transfer. Around the same time, authorities in Davao City filed criminal charges of illegal possession of explosives and reckless damage to property against Meiring, issuing a warrant for his arrest and an immigration hold departure order to prevent him from leaving the country. Meiring was eventually transported to America and checked into the Arrowhead Medical Research Center in Colton, California, to undergo treatment for severe burns.

Aftermath

Crime scene investigators discovered an ID card from the Moro National Liberation Front, with Meiring's details on it, inside the other metal box in the hotel room. It was also revealed that Meiring had been monitored by local police in the run up to the explosion, who were suspicious of the frequent moving of boxes to and from the Evergreen Hotel, and that he had recently been caught in possession of counterfeit US dollars at Toril fish market. In addition to Meiring's dramatic escape aided by US government officials, the fact that a number of bomb alerts had occurred locally in the days leading up to the explosion, along with a fatal blast in General Santos City the previous month by an unknown group that killed 15 people and injured 55 others after a series of anonymous warnings via text messages, gave rise to speculation that Meiring was responsible for a false flag operation designed to induce the Philippine government to grant American authorities greater influence locally in regards to the War on terror.

In May 2002, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a statement denying any involvement in Meiring's escape, asserting that although FBI explosives experts had visited the crime scene it was only to investigate a possible terrorist attack against an American citizen, and that the agents returned to Manila on the same day. In a March 2005 interview, American Ambassador to the Philippines Francis J. Ricciardone Jr. claimed that Meiring was moved to a hospital in Manila on the advice of local doctors. Ricciardone also asserted that when Meiring was repatriated to the United States nine days later, the Philippine authorities had not informed the US Embassy that Meiring had any pending criminal charges and that he was not halted by the Bureau of Immigration either while exiting the country.

In May 2016, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte attributed the event to causing his "hatred" towards the United States. Duterte condemned the United States government for assisting the criminal Meiring in leaving the country, disregarding the Philippine legal process. He called the alleged act disrespectful of Philippine sovereignty. Duterte says that he received no apology from the United States. Duterte was Mayor of Davao City at the time of the incident. At that time, Duterte said Meiring was responsible for the incident, and that he refused to cooperate with the police when they searched his room before the explosion.