ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – A senior leader and financier of the Abu Sayyaf bandit group has been meted with life imprisonment, along with four others in connection with the kidnapping of a nurse in 2008.
Khair Mundos, Ashra Jawari, Ellel Bugarak, Bensar Indama and Ermiahe Achmad were found guilty by a local court on Monday for kidnapping and serious illegal detention charges.
City police chief Senior Superintendent Angelito Casimiro said the accused were each sentence with life imprisonment without the possibility of getting paroled.
Casimiro said the case against the accused stemmed from the kidnapping of a nurse in July 2008 in this city.
The victim was freed after more than three months in captivity and payment of P3-million in ransom.
The court ordered the accused to pay the victim P3 million in legal, moral and exemplary damages.
Mundos, who was included in the US government’s list of most wanted terrorist, was arrested in June 2014 in Parañaque City.
He reportedly acted as a conduit for money coming from the international terrorist group al-Qaeda to finance the operations of the Abu Sayyaf.
Philippine authorities had offered P1.2 million while the US government $500,000 for Mundos’ capture.
Casimiro said Indama, a younger brother of Abu Sayyaf leader Furuji Indama, was arrested in Basilan in 2012.
Security was tight during the trial.
A court employee said the accused showed no remorse when the decision was read to them.
Casimiro said the five would be brought back to their detention cell in Taguig City, and would be committed to the New Bilibid Prison to serve their sentence.