Suspect in kidnap of 3 Indon crewmen nabbed

ZAMBOANGA CITY — A Muslim extremist rebel allegedly involved in the abduction of three Indonesians was arrested last Monday night in this city where he was apparently looking for new kidnap victims, the military said.

Army intelligence agents shot Bhala Bada, 37, in the leg when he tried to fight back while being arrested in Barangay Sta. Catalina, a slum area, said Lt. Col. Danilo Servando, spokesman of the Armed Forces’ Southern Command. He was being treated in a military hospital.

Bada allegedly admitted during interrogation that he was among a group of gunmen who abducted Indonesians Munto Jacobo Winowatan, Julkipli and Pieter Lerrich, crewmen of tugboat M/T Marine Sentil 88, near Capual Island off Sulu last June 17.

The captives were taken to the hinterlands of Sulu’s Luuk town.

Bada, the intelligence officer of a small faction of the Abu Sayyaf extremist group that officials have linked to al-Qaeda, told investigators that the three Indonesians have been turned over to a larger Abu Sayyaf group in Jolo led by Radulan Sahiron, a one-armed rebel wanted by the military, Servando said.

Bada is also being investigated for possible involvement in a series of bomb attacks in Zamboanga that killed several people, including a US Green Beret, this month, Servando said.

A group of Luuk officials tried to negotiate to secure the release of the Indonesians in the initial weeks of the abduction but failed.

The kidnappers were reportedly demanding up to P15 million, military officials said.

Neither Indonesia nor the Singaporean employer of the Indonesian sailors was willing to pay ransom, the officials said.

After the negotiations failed, the military intensified search and rescue operations along with an offensive against the Abu Sayyaf. Sahiron was wounded in a recent military assault, Servando quoted Bada as saying.

Government troops are also looking for four Filipino women belonging to the Jehovah’s Witnesses who were abducted in August in Sulu’s Patikul town. The captives are believed to be held either by the Abu Sayyaf or bandits. — Roel Pareño, Jaime Laude and AP