PHILIPPINE REBELS SAY PREACHERS NOT HELD HOSTAGE
JOLO, Philippines (Reuters) --
Islamic rebels holding 20 mostly international hostages denied on Tuesday that they had
taken captive 13 Christian preachers who had gone to visit their camp and said the
evangelists were with them "for 44 days of fasting."
The fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf
guerrillas issued the statement amid growing fears that the missionaries, who trekked
through rugged hills into the rebel lair on Saturday to pray for the hostages, had
themselves been detained.
On Sunday, four suspected
rebels seized a German reporter for Der Spiegel news magazine, further complicating a
10-week hostage crisis that has brought international embarrassment to President Joseph
Estrada's embattled government.
Police said reporter Andreas
Lorenz was seen on Monday hiking with his captors through the forests of Patikul hills
just outside Jolo town.
"This is to inform all the
people of the Philippines that the Jesus Miracle Crusaders are here for 44 days of fasting
for the 20 hostages of Sipadan, Sabah, Malaysia," the Abu Sayyaf said in a statement
handed by a woman emissary to a Reuters reporter.
"These people, pastors or
priests, are not hostages," said the statement signed by rebel chiefs Galib Andang
and Mujib Susukan.
The hostages -- including eight
Malaysians, three Germans, two French nationals, two South Africans, two Finns, two
Filipinos and a Lebanese -- were abducted from Malaysia's Sipadan island diving resort on
April 23 and brought to Jolo, 960 kilometers (600 miles) south of Manila.
The Abu Sayyaf is one of two
groups fighting for an independent Moslem homeland in the south of the mainly Roman
Catholic country.
Chief pastor Wilde Almeda of
the Manila-based religious movement and a dozen followers said when they left for the
rebel hideout last weekend that they would pray for the release of the hostages. They had
brought with them "gifts" of $3,000 and sacks of rice for the rebels.
Manila newspapers said the Abu
Sayyaf had demanded a ransom of $10 million for the missionaries but the presidential
palace in Manila said no such demand had been received.
"The only report I have on
my desk is the confirmation that they are being held against their will," Defense
Secretary Orlando Mercado said in Manila.
"The (Abu Sayyaf) is
saying that Almeda's group is really fasting. We hope that is correct," he said.
Philippine Foreign Secretary
Domingo Siazon voiced exasperation at the abduction of Lorenz, whom the rebels also
detained for several hours last month along with other foreign journalists who tried to
see the hostages.
"There's a saying that if
you're bitten by a dog, that's okay. But if you're bitten by the same dog twice, shame on
you," Siazon said.
Police said Lorenz was snatched
at gunpoint by four men who had offered to help him meet the rebels. Witnesses said the
gunmen struck him in the head with a pistol when he resisted.
The rebels originally kidnapped
21 people from Malaysia but freed one of them, a Malaysian forest ranger, on June 25.
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