Tipster gets P.35-M reward for info on Zambo kidnapper

ZAMBOANGA CITY — A civilian informant received a P350,000 reward on Monday for helping the authorities neutralize the city’s most wanted kidnapper, police said.

Chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal, Region 9 police director, lauded the informant’s courage in aiding the police and the military in locating Romy Akilan, who headed a kidnap-for-ransom gang, and killing him in a shootout on Sacol Island.

Superintendent Jose Bayani Gucela, spokesman of the regional police, said Akilan faced a string of charges ranging from kidnapping with ransom to serious illegal detention in local courts.

Gucela said the Department of the Interior and Local Government provided the cash reward.

Earlier in the day, US Ambassador Kristie Kenney handed over a P80,000 reward to the parents of two Muslim boys who discovered two powerful bombs planted by Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf terrorists near a road in Indanan, Sulu where American and Filipino troops were holding joint military exercises.

"Their courage saved the lives of well-meaning and peace-loving people of Sulu," said Kenney, who was accompanied by Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and US Pacific Command chief Admiral William Fallon.