Indonesian seaman kidnappers go to ground

Indonesian seaman kidnappers go to ground

Agence France-Presse, Manila

Kidnappers holding three Indonesian seamen in the southern
Philippines are lying low, with no ransom demands or claims of
responsibility issued a week after the abductions, the defense
department said on Monday.

"It's very unusual," department spokesman Melchor Rosales said
on local television. "There has been no demand for anything" or
even "any claim" for responsibility.

Gunmen believed to be Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas boarded a
tugboat hauling a coal-laden barge near the Abu Sayyaf stronghold
of Basilan island on June 17 and seized the vessel's four
Indonesian officers.

The second officer, Ferdinan Joel, escaped and reported the
abductions to police on Jolo island, another Abu Sayyaf
stronghold, two days later.

Rosales said that while Joel identified police mugshots of
Hamsiraji Sali, leader of a Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf unit, the
six other crewmen who were not abducted pointed to somebody else.

"It's not yet conclusive, but you have to put weight to Joel's
testimony," Rosales said. "Therefore, the (Abu Sayyaf) group is
suspect."

The gunmen are still holding the boat's skipper Muntu Jacobus
Winowatan, chief officer Julkifli, and chief engineer Pieter
Lerrech.

However, Rosales said he was not ruling out the possibility
that the three could have been taken by other armed groups
operating in the Jolo-Basilan region, which has been wracked by
three decades of Muslim separatist rebellion.

"That (shipping) company was subjected to pirate attacks five
years before," he said without elaborating.

In the past, the Abu Sayyaf have issued initial political
demands, including swapping captives for Islamic militant Ramzi
Youssef, serving a life term in the United States for the 1993
World Trade Center bombing. However, they generally settled for
cash ransoms.

The guerrilla group is linked to the al-Qaeda group, the main
suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S.

On Friday the Philippine military claimed they killed senior
Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Sabaya in a high seas shootout in the Sulu
Sea. His body has not been found three days later, Rosales said.

Sabaya held hostage a U.S. Christian missionary couple for
more than a year. The woman was rescued two weeks ago, but the
husband and a Filipina captive were slain in a rescue attempt.