The photo obtained by InterAksyon.com from an intelligence source last month purporting to show German hostages Stefan Victor Okonek, 71, and Herike Diesen, 55, with their Abu Sayyaf captors.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Thursday it was leaving it to law enforcement agencies to deal with the threat of the Abu Sayyaf Group to behead one of its two German hostages if Berlin did not pay a P250-million ransom.
Assistant Secretary Charles Jose, DFA spokesman, said in a text message, "This is basically a law enforcement matter and we defer to our law enforcement agencies."
The DFA has not communicated with the German Embassy regarding the matter, and Jose said he had no information on whether or not Berlin's diplomatic mission is cooperating with the Philippine National Police (PNP) or the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
Members of the extremist group on Wednesday posted on a website its threat to behead one of its two German captives if Berlin fails to pay ransom of P250 million; and Germany does not withdraw support for the US-led air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The demands were contained in a letter posted on World Analysis, a nonpartisan and open-source information resource for geopolitical events worldwide, a website run by Canadian Casey Britton. He is described as a former private investigator and information systems developer.
How the website obtained a copy of the letter remains unknown.
Besides the letter-demand, the site posted three photos of two Germans--Stefan Viktor Okonek, 71, and Herike Diesen, 55, tourists who disappeared off Palawan island last April 25 enroute to Sabah from a holiday in Palawan.
Filipino fishermen found their abandoned yacht, sparking a massive search.
The photo on the website showed Okonek kneeling and surrounded by masked gunmen, one of whom clutched a bolo while holding the German by his nape.
No PH ground troops
The DFA, meanwhile, affirmed its earlier decision not to send Filipino ground troops as a contribution to the international coalition fighting the Islamic State that is sowing terror across huge swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.
Nonetheless, DFA's Jose maintained that Manila will support the campaign in ways other than sending Filipino soldiers to the conflict zone.
Several countries in the Middle East like Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia are backing the US-led campaign.
The Philippines had sent soldiers to Iraq as part of the Coalition of the Willing in the 2003 invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein.
This time, the US launched air strikes in known ISIL camps in Syria days after the group beheaded two American journalists and a British aid worker.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/96153/dfa-defers-to-security-agencies-in-handling-asg-threat-to-behead-german-captive
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