Roda’s kidnappers execute one of 2 hostages

ZAMBOANGA CITY – A vendor used as a human shield by the fleeing killers of Catholic priest Fr. Reynaldo Roda has been executed. Superintendent Wainwright Taup, Tawi-Tawi police commander, said they have received information that the vendor, Hussin Sariul, was killed by the gunmen who took him hostage along with Omar Taup, the principal of the Notre Dame School in Tawi-Tawi, where Roda was killed.

“We have information that the kidnappers of Fr. Roda have executed another captive they had taken as human shield,” he said.

Principal Taup was reportedly to have fallen ill in captivity, he added.

It is not yet known if the principal is related to the Tawi-Tawi police commander.

Taup said police fished out a lifeless body off Languyan Island, but it turned out to be that of a certain Robin Hadja who drowned after his pumpboat capsized on the rough seas off Tawi-Tawi.

He had already informed Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police director, that the recovered remains were not connected with the kidnapping of Roda, he added.

Taup said they have not yet pinpointed the place where the kidnappers fled with their captive as police forces have fanned out to different islands and islets in search of the suspects.

Contacts have been established in one of the islands near Sulu where the suspects could have fled, he added.

Last Jan. 15, an Abu Sayyaf band led by one Asman Sawajaan barged into a Catholic convent in Barangay Tabawan in South Ubian and dragged away Fr. Roda, who was shot in cold blood when he resisted.

The gunmen snatched Taup and Sariul as they fled when they sensed that responding armed villagers and policemen were starting to close in.

Goltiao, who is supervising the hunt for Roda’s killers, said they have enlisted the help of the town mayors in Tawi-Tawi to locate the whereabouts of Taup and Sariul.  – With John Unson