THOSE holding Constable Zakiah Aleip captive have contacted the police for his ransom.
The brief call ended with one of his captors saying, “I demand 10 million”.
However, they did not say if that was what it will take for them to set him free.
The call came at 10.50pm on Sunday, a day after the 26-year-old marine policeman was abducted by six heavily-armed gunmen who came from the southern Philippines, just after 11pm.
The terrorists came in two speedboats fitted with additional outboard engines.
The gunmen, (two more were believed to be manning the speedboats) had first killed Zakiah’s colleague, Corporal Abd Rajah Jamuan, 32.
Rajah, who died from gunshot wounds to the chest, was found in the water close to the dining hall of the Mabul Water Bungalows Resort on Pulau Mabul here.
The two policemen were part of a four-man patrol who were on a break.
The ransom call, which sources told the New Straits Times “was brief”, was made to the Semporna marine police headquarters’ operations centre.
Zakiah was first put on the line.
This was when he told the police officer who had picked up the call, an inspector, that his kidnappers had asked for no less than 10 million.
Zakiah, however, did not specify which currency his captors had asked for.
Before he could continue, someone took over the phone and told the inspector in English that his group expected to be paid the ransom.
The call was then cut off.
The man on the other end of the line did not give any instructions or set any conditions.
The NST was made to understand that Zakiah was well and was not under duress.
“There have been several calls from Zakiah, including from his own phone to his wife, as well as the Marine police operations centre.
“There was also a call made on Monday at 10pm from a foreign-registered number.
“We believe this was also his captors telling us that Zakiah had not been harmed, so that they will get what they want,” a source close to the on going investigations said.
Meanwhile, another set of sources told the NST that authorities believe that the gunmen had come from Setangkai (Tumindao Reef) in the Philippines, and had taken the route near Mataking (the island closest to the Malaysia-Philippine border).
It is exactly 3.8 nautical miles from the Malaysia-Philippines maritime border to Mataking.
Authorities said the escape route believed to have been taken by the gunmen, gave Malaysian pursuers little time to an intercept the gunmen.
This was because the gunmen had gone south from Pulau Mabul, past Pulau Sipadan and into international waters to retreat to the Philippines.
The dash they had to make was just about 10 nautical miles.
If the gunmen had taken the same route they had come in, they would likely have been intercepted by Malaysian enforcement vessels, including those dispatched from Mataking, that was at several cut-off points along the border.
There are a set of teams pre-positioned on every island within the Sabah’s east coast waters, ready to be mobilised at a moment’s notice.
[Video report: Seven innocent people beheaded in Sulu by Abu Sayyaf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SyxEBDYX0I (Warning graphic content)
The recording depicts the killing of each worker in gory detail, and at one point, Alhabsi even zooms in on a severed head while making a celebratory comment.
Later, he very briefly turns the camera to himself, and the face is clearly visible to be that of the man identified by Philippines and Malaysian intelligence forces as the rising leader in the Abu Sayyaf terror group.
Towards the end of the video, the gunmen approach the remaining hostage and are seen tying his hands behind his back while asking him several questions.
They then lead him into the jungle, but his fate is unknown, as the recording ends abruptly.
The video clip, titled Seven innocent people in Jolo, Sulu beheaded by Abu Sayyaf group was uploaded on YouTube by a Raymond Penny in July last year, and has garnered more than 5,000 views to date.
The workers, who were employed at a nearby plywood factory, were apparently abducted and beheaded after the company refused to pay extortion money to Abu Sayyaf for carrying out logging in the area.
Alhabsi, then only a junior member of the terror group, has since risen in the ranks after making millions of pesos in ransom money from the spate of kidnappings on the east coast of Sabah.
Zakiah was snatched from a resort in Sabah's east coast when eight masked gunmen in military fatigues attacked Mabul Island last Saturday. The gunmen also killed another policeman, Abdul Rajah Jamuan, 32. -Asiaonehttp://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=323021:as-leader-recites-quranic-verses-abu-sayyaf-gunmen-behead-hostages-in-chilling-video-clip&Itemid=2#axzz37mUw3uH3
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