Kidnapped German reporter seen in Jolo forest
Kidnapped German reporter seen in Jolo forest
JOLO, Philippines (Reuters): A German reporter seized by Philippine Moro rebels holding 20 mostly foreign hostages was seen trekking through a forest with his captors on Monday.
Intelligence officials said police could not take action for fear of endangering Andreas Lorenz, the Beijing-based correspondent of Der Spiegel news magazine.
Lorenz, one of the journalists covering the 10-week old hostage saga, was snatched at gunpoint outside Jolo town on Sunday by four men who had offered to help him meet the fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf guerrillas holding the hostages.
Witnesses said Lorenz resisted when the gunmen ordered him to get out of his vehicle and they struck him with a pistol. "They kicked him and then hit him with a gun. He uttered a cry and he was bleeding slightly in the forehead. Then he said, 'Okay, okay, I will go,'" witness Hussin Ibbang told reporters.
Lorenz was walking through the forests of Patikul hills around Jolo when he was seen by police agents, said the intelligence officials, who asked not to be identified.
In the wake of Lorenz's abduction, armed police have been escorting the estimated 15 Filipino journalists covering the hostage saga wherever they go.
It was the second time Lorenz had been held by the rebels. He was with a group of foreign journalists the Abu Sayyaf detained for 10 hours last month and threatened with guns before they were freed on payment of $25,000, diplomats said.
Police concern also mounted on Monday for 13 Christian bible preachers who were allowed by the Abu Sayyaf to visit their camp on the Muslim-dominated island, 960 kilometers south of Manila, at the weekend.
"Our information is that they (the evangelists) will stay there for three days. If it goes beyond three days, then they are no longer staying there voluntarily," provincial police chief Candido Casimiro told Reuters.
The "spiritual warriors" from the Manila-based Jesus Miracle Crusade group, carrying "gifts" of cash and rice for the rebels, walked into the jungle lair on Saturday afternoon chanting the name of Jesus and prayed for the release of the hostages.
Casimiro said the rebels sent word on Sunday to a local journalist that the evangelists had "requested" to stay in the forest "for 40 days" so they could fast and pray.
"I am sending one of my men over there to get a feedback on what is happening before I tell you anything," Casimiro said. Three of the hostages being held by the Abu Sayyaf are German nationals. The others are eight Malaysians, two French nationals, two South Africans, two Finns, two Filipinos and one Lebanese.
The group, including another Malaysian freed last week, was abducted from a Malaysian diving resort on April 23.
The hostage ordeal and clashes with a bigger rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on the main southern island of Mindanao, have presented President Joseph Estrada with his biggest security challenge and raised questions about his ability to handle crises.
The Abu Sayyaf and the MILF are fighting for an Islamic state in the south of the mainly Catholic country. Estrada has rejected their demand and instead offered them autonomy under Manila's rule.