American hostage seeks Libya's help, denies
being CIA agent
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines, Sept 11
(AFP) - American hostage Jeffrey Schilling, in a taped message broadcast on local radio on
Monday, denied he was a CIA agent and appealed for Libyan help in convincing Muslim
extremist guerrillas to free him.
"I would like to appeal to
the American and Philippine governments to negotiate for my safe release," he said in
the message broadcast on DXRZ radio in this southern city.
The 24 year-old from Oakland,
California, said he was held by Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the remote southern island of
Jolo "but not mistreated."
"Please see the Libyan
government to act as negotiator to end my captivity as soon as possible," he said.
The station broadcast the
message as a Libyan jet flew home four European tourists freed by the gunmen last weekend.
The gunmen still hold
Schilling, two French journalists and more than a dozen Filipinos.
The station did not dislose how
it obtained the tape or whether Schilling was speaking of his own free will or under
duress. The tape was scratchy but the message was delivered in American-accented English.
Munib Estino, a local
government official assigned by Philippine President Joseph Estrada to negotiate with
Schilling's abductors, had an emissary deliver a videocamera, a tape recorder and
stationery to the rebel camp last week.
Schilling's Filipina wife, Ivy
Osani confirmed that the voice on the tape was her husband's.
In an interview over DXRZ,
Osani said: "Please stay strong. I'm appealing to you people to release my husband
unharmed. I'm praying for you. I love you."
Police said the Abu Sayyaf
detained Schilling on August 28 when he and his wife visited their camp.
The gunmen let the wife leave
but she has since been detained by police, who described her as a widow of a slain Abu
Sayyaf fighter and a distant relative of another Abu Sayyaf leader.
Schilling said in the tape that
his wife is "innocent" and appealed to the police to release her, saying she is
two months' pregnant.
He said he has heard that the
gunmen accused him of being an agent for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but
dismissed the charge as "impossible" and "based on a
misunderstanding".
He said he admitted to his
captors that he knew a former US Marine who the gunmen had apparently met earlier.
"Perhaps he was a CIA
agent, and due to my association with him they assumed that I was also a CIA agent and
this was the reason" he was taken captive.
"Neither my wife nor her
grandfather Ahmad Upao had anything to do with my abduction," he said, referring to
an elderly man detained by police earlier this month in connection with another kidnapping
case in nearby Basilan island.
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