Tamil Tiger guerrillas release Indonesian skipper

Tamil Tiger guerrillas release Indonesian skipper

COLOMBO (AFP): The freed Indonesian skipper of a refugee ship
yesterday said he had feared for his life throughout his three-
day captivity by Tamil Tiger guerrillas who accused him of
transporting government soldiers.

Captain Nang Hadi, 40, said his abductors told him the 500-
seater ferry, the MV Misen, was torched five days ago because it
allegedly transported security personnel.

"I told them that we were only taking civilians and refugees
at that. No soldiers," Hadi said a day after he was handed over
by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to the
International Committee of the Red Cross.

He said armed guerrillas of the LTTE constantly guarded him
and eight other crew abducted from the ferry on July 1 while it
was anchored off the island's north-western town of Pesalai.

"About 20 people armed with rifles boarded the ship while I
was on the bridge," he said. "They bundled me into a speed boat
and took me away to the shore."

He said he was slightly hurt after the speed boat crossed
choppy seas and brought him to a coastal location where there
were many more armed guerrillas dressed in Tiger camouflage.

"The food given to me was not good but it was OK," Hadi said.
He felt ill and was taken to a makeshift hospital where he got
two pain killer tablets and a dressing on his forehead. The
captives were moved to several locations and finally kept at a
jungle camp in the island's north.

Hadi was freed together with his chief engineer and fellow
Indonesian, Imam Wahyudi, 43, who said he was happy to be free
and wanted to return to his home in Central Java "as soon as
possible."

A visibly shaken Hadi told a small group of reporters here at
the local office of the ship owner that he was keen to return
home to see his wife and 11-year-old son. "I think they know I am
now safe," Hadi said.

He said he asked the LTTE leaders to release his other crew
members, all Sri Lankans, but the Tigers had refused saying they
had not yet completed their "investigations."

MV Misen, owned by a Sri Lankan company, had done only two
trips ferrying Tamil refugees from the north-western pier of
Mannar to the northern peninsula of Jaffna when it was attacked.

Chief Military spokesman Sarath Munasinghe said the LTTE
destroyed the vessel to scare Tamil men, women and children who
were planning to use the ferry service to return to their homes
in Jaffna, the former Tiger bastion.

Security forces captured the peninsula in Dec. 1995 after
driving out the Tigers, but some 500,000 Tamil civilians have
returned to Jaffna in the past 18 months despite Tiger threats,
Munasinghe said.