Gunmen seize couple in Southern Philippines

From the Mindanao Examiner blog site (Feb 16): Gunmen seize couple in Southern Philippines

Unidentified gunmen abducted a Filipino couple shortly after they arrived by boat at dawn Sunday in the southern province of Sulu, police said.

Police said Bonifacio Salinas, 54, and his wife, Claire, just returned home from Zamboanga City and were about to enter their house in Patikul town when gunmen seized them.

“We are investigating the motive of the abduction and who were behind it,” Senior Superintendent Abraham Orbita, the provincial police chief, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.

He said the couple, who works at the Jolo Mainland Water District, were seized in the village of Kasalamatan by five gunmen who dragged them to a waiting jeep.

No individual or group claimed responsibility for the latest abduction, but previous cases in the province have been largely blamed to the Abu Sayyaf, a small, but the most notorious rebel group specializing in ransom kidnappings and terrorism.

In December, police in Sulu arrested an Abu Sayyaf member Haik Asgali alias Abu Aswad who was implicated in the February 2012 kidnapping in Tawi-Tawi province of two European wildlife photographers Ewold Horn, 52, from Holland; and Lorenzo Vinciguerre, 47, from Switzerland.

Asgali, who was captured in Jolo town, is a nephew of Abu Sayyaf leader Radulan Sahiron.

The two foreigners, along with their Filipino guide Ivan Sarenas, 35, were abducted at gunpoint by five men in the coastal village of Parangan in Panglima Sugala town while taking photographs of wild birds, and handed them over to the Abu Sayyaf. Sarenas managed to escape, but the fate of the two foreigners is unknown.

The Abu Sayyaf also kidnapped the provincial treasurer of Sulu, Jess Cabilin, in Patikul town in November and was a released unharmed following a negotiation launched by his family.

Authorities tagged Cabelin's kidnappers as Ninok Sappari and Julli Ikit who were also implicated in the March 2012 kidnapping of Indian national Viju Kolara Veetil and other Filipinos in Sulu, one of five provinces under the Muslim autonomous region.

http://mindanaoexaminer.blogspot.com/2014/02/gunmen-seize-couple-in-southern.html