ZAMBOANGA SIBUGAY (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 17, 2014) – Philippines authorities are holding three men implicated in the series of kidnappings in Western Mindanao region.
The trio Abral Abdusalam, Rating Hadjirul and Kismir Hadjurul were arrested by police and military units in a house in the village of Timbang-Timbang in Zamboanga Sibugay’s Alicia town and are currently being interrogated.
They were tracked down in the house of Hadjirul where authorities also seized an M16 automatic rifle and a magazine, one fragmentation grenade, police and military uniforms and two mobile phones.
Police said Abral Abdusalam, a brother of a former Moro Islamic Liberation Front leader Waning Abdusalam, has a string of criminal cases and is long wanted by authorities for his involvement in many ransom kidnappings in the region.
It said the police operation was conducted in the presence of village chieftain Hussein Abdulasalam.
There was no report about Waning or if was in the area when police arrested the trio. Waning was also linked to the kidnapping of Australian adventurer Warren Rodwell in Zamboanga Sibugay’s Ipil town on December 2011 and freed in June 2013 after his brother and sister paid $94,600 ransom. (Mindanao Examiner)
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