Tourists abducted from Sipadan 'safe'

Tourists abducted from Sipadan 'safe'

SEMPORNA, Malaysia (AP): Two Americans who escaped abduction from a remote island off northeastern Borneo arrived in the Malaysian capital Monday night to brief authorities, while the whereabouts of 20 other foreign tourists and local resort workers remained a mystery more than 24 hours after their capture.

Information relayed to authorities said the hostages were safe, according to Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar. He would not elaborate.

Six heavily armed assailants surprised and then captured the group on Sipadan Island late Sunday, said Sulaiman Junaidi, police chief of Semporna, the port city where divers catch boats headed for the lush island.

The hostage-takers were speaking the Filipino language of Tausug, officials said. The abductors made no demands and sped off in two fishing boats that appeared to be heading into Philippine waters, they said.

Malaysian Inspector General of Police Norian Mai told a news conference that six men carrying AK-47 rifles and a rocket launcher forced 20 people onto the boats after confiscating their cash and jewelry. Other authorities have said up to 23 people were abducted.

Details were fuzzy regarding the whereabouts of the hostages. Norian said he did not know where they were, while Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak said an air-and-sea search team had located them.

"We now know their exact location," Najib said without elaborating.

When asked if the Malaysian government had any information on the armed hostage-takers, Syed Hamid said: "I think the authorities are taking the necessary steps to get them released from their captors."

Norian said police suspected that "political motives" were likely behind the hostage-taking. "We believe a foreign element is involved."

Sipadan is a world-renowned diving island off the northeast coast of Sabah, the Malaysian side of Borneo island, which is shared with Indonesia.

The two Southeast Asian neighbors have both claimed sovereignty over the island since 1969. But there were no indications that the hostage-takers were involved in the territorial dispute.

Philippine officials said they were investigating a possible link between the hostage-taking in Malaysia and Filipino rebels who took hostages last month on a Southern Philippine island in the same waters as Sipadan.

Two Americans, James and Mary Murphy, both 51, escaped by refusing to get on the boat, according to police in Semporna.

Police there said the couple was from St. George's Crescent, but they didn't know which state they were from.

Eyewitnesses at the resort island said the hostages were forced to swim to the boats. They said Mary Murphy couldn't swim and when the kidnappers tried to force her, James Murphy said they'd have to shoot him if they forced her into the water.

When the hostage-takers turned around, the Murphys apparently ran into the bushes and hid until dawn, eyewitnesses said.

Malaysia's foreign minister, contradicting earlier reports that many of the hostages were Americans, said the group now included two French tourists, three Germans, two South Africans, two Finns and one Lebanese.

The hostages also included four Malaysians from the wildlife department and five Malaysians and one Filipino working at the resort.

Katja Libowski, 28, from Munich, Germany, told the AP that she was with the three German hostages until Friday, when she went to a neighboring island for a diving lesson. She said Werner Gunter Cort and Renate Juta, and their son Marc Wallert, were from Hanover.

"I remember waving goodbye to them before I left," she said. "It's a beautiful place, but I don't think I'll come back here for the next few years."

A local marine photographer who escaped said one of the kidnappers identified himself as a police officer and told him to give up his watch and cellular phone.

"At first I thought he was joking ... but when I refused to obey his orders, he held a gun to my head," Danny Chin, 48, was quoted as saying by the national news agency Bernama.