K
Kanetsugu Naoe
Guest
Published: Wednesday December 22, 2010 MYT 10:43:00 AM
Updated: Wednesday December 22, 2010 MYT 2:22:02 PM
Two Malaysians, held hostage since February, freed (Updated)
By RUBEN SARIO
KOTA KINABALU: Two Malaysian sea weed farm workers held by Filipino gunmen in southern Philippines since Feb 8 have been freed. Family members of Tsen Vui Chung, 41, and Lai Wing Chau, 26, said they had received word that the two men had been released.
It is learnt that Philippines security personnel had rescued Tsen and Lai at about 6am Wednesday at an undisclosed location in the southern Philippines island of Tawi Tawi. Both men are on their way to Manila for a debriefing with Philippines officials before taking a flight to Kota Kinabalu.
Tsen and Lai were abducted from a seaweed farm at Pulau Sebangkat off the east coast of Semporna district. Since then, Malaysian police officials said they were working with their Philippines counterpart to secure their release amid reports that the gunmen had demanded for “board and lodging,” a euphemism for ransom payments.
Associated Press reported from MANILA that the Filipino gunmen with ties to al-Qaeda-linked militants have freed two Malaysian labourers from 10 months of jungle captivity, police said Wednesday.
The hostages were seized Feb. 8 from a seaweed farm in Malaysia’s Sabah state and whisked away in a speedboat to nearby Philippine waters in a pattern similar to past kidnappings-for-ransom blamed on the notorious terrorist group Abu Sayyaf.
Police commandos, who have been searching for the captives, recovered the two near Bongao town in the southern-most island province of Tawi-Tawi late Tuesday, national police chief Raul Bacalzo told reporters. He said the gunmen linked to the Abu Sayyaf abandoned the hostages after they were encircled by government forces.
The kidnappers escaped and the Malaysians, Chen Yui Chung, 48, and Lai Wong Chun, 46, were flown to Manila. They will be turned over to the Malaysian Embassy after being debriefed by Philippine authorities. The kidnappers had demanded ransom but it was unclear if any was paid, as was the case with past abductions.
Malaysian and Philippine authorities were initially unsure if the hostages were still in Malaysia or the southern Philippines, where the Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim rebel groups have carried out kidnapping-for-ransom.
Officials in Tawi-Tawi, about 1,000km southwest of Manila, had ordered a search in the far-flung province after police in June monitored a cell phone call made by one of the captives to his family in Malaysia, according to a Philippine security official.
The official, who helped oversee the search, declined to be named because he was not authorised to talk to the media. “They were brought from Tawi-Tawi to Jolo and back and we did not know where to look for them,” Tawi-Tawi Gov. Sadikul Sahali said.
Chen Yui Chung’s brother-in-law, Chong Man Tung, told The Associated Press in June that his relative had called him weeks after the abduction saying the two were being held by gunmen on an unspecified Philippine island.
The kidnappers apparently had moved the captives from Tawi-Tawi to nearby Jolo Island and back to evade the Philippine military and police manhunt, the security official said.
The Abu Sayyaf has gained notoriety for high-profile kidnapping, beheading and bomb attacks. Battle setbacks, arrests and surrenders have reduced the group’s strength to more than 300 from more than 1,000 guerrillas during its heyday in 2000, the military says.
That year the militants abducted 21 Asian workers and Western tourists from Malaysia’s Sipadan diving resort and brought them to Jolo. They were freed in batches in exchange for huge ransoms.
