POLICE COMB HOSTAGE ISLAND FOR GERMAN JOURNALIST, PREACHERS
JOLO, Philippines (AFP) - A
German journalist and 13 Filipino Christian preachers missing in the southern Philippines
have been abducted by Muslim extremists holding 20 other mostly foreign hostages, the
military said Monday.
Government spies saw Andreas
Lorenz, 48, of Der Spiegel magazine inside an Abu Sayyaf camp in the foothills of Mount
Gassam in Jolo island, intelligence sources here said.
The preachers, led by Jesus
Miracle Crusade evangelist Wilde Almeda, were seized while on a mercy mission Saturday
night, and their bibles and other religious materials were burned, the military said.
Lorenz was abducted from the
village of Kasalamatan on Sunday by gunmen who hit him on the forehead with the butt of a
pistol, drawing blood, his Filipino interpreter told police Monday.
A military report prepared for
President Joseph Estrada said the gunmen were Abu Sayyaf members operating under the
command of Radulan Sajiron, a one-armed veteran rebel.
However, an Abu Sayyaf
spokesman Abu Sabaya said in a radio interview Monday that they were not holding the
German and insisted that the preachers were staying in the kidnappers' camp on their own
free will "to spend 40 days praying there."
The Abu Sayyaf, a loose
organization of several Muslim armed groups who style themselves as independence fighters,
seized 21 Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Lebanese, Malaysian and South African
hostages in the Malaysian island of Sipadan last April 23.
One Malaysian was freed last
month but the group wants a million dollars for each of the 20 remaining hostages.
German journalist Lorenz had
earlier spurned a police escort on his way to meet rebel contacts.
"I am old, I have no
money. What would the Abu sayyaf want to do with me?" the manager of Lorenz's hotel
quoted the German as saying.
Lorenz was among 10 Western
journalists detained by the Abu Sayyaf early last month when they tried to enter the
gunmen's hideout. They paid over 25,000 dollars for their collective freedom after being
threatened with death.
Foreign Secretary Domingo
Siazon said the government would negotiate for Lorenz's freedom even though he flouted
orders against seeking out the rebels.
Noting that this was Lorenz's
second abduction, Siazon said "there's a saying, if you're bitten by a dog, that's
okay. Bitten by the (same) dog twice, shame on you."
The military said a Abu Sayyaf
unit led by Galib Andang and Mujib Susukan, which abducted the 20 mostly foreign hostages,
were behind the kidnapping of the 13 Filipino preachers who had visited their jungle camp
to pray over the captives.
Almeda was not allowed to
preach even after he paid the kidnappers 3,000 dollars, the military said.
Earlier, Andang sent a taped
message to the press saying the "prayer warriors" were only staying at their
camp for a 40-day fast.
President Estrada's National
Security Adviser Alexander Aguirre on Monday criticized the new hostages for being
"blockheads."
Defense Secretary Orlando
Mercado told reporters: "We are not underestimating the power of prayers since it can
move a lot of things, but this has complicated matters."
In a separate development, a
hereditary sultan, Esmael Kiram, said that the Abu Sayyaf gunmen were asking him as well
as a former diplomat Romulo Espaldon and Philippine Senator Ramon Magsaysay to join the
government negotiating panel.
Kiram, whose sultanate covers
Sulu province where the hostages are being held, said that the rebels approached him to
mediate and that he advised them to free the hostages.
The Abu Sayyaf has previously
asked the government to appoint new negotiators but officials turned these requests down.
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