ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / June 24, 2012) – A veteran Jordanian journalist and his two Filipino assistants who were secretly filming a documentary on Abu Sayyaf are now being held hostage by the terrorist group in the southern Philippines, Filipino officials said Saturday.
Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo has told a radio network that terrorists are now holding Baker Atyani and his crew Ramelito Vela and Rolan Letriro in Sulu province where the trio met with Abu Sayyaf leaders.
“They are now being held against their will. While they remain unharmed and not threatened, they are now being prevented from leaving,” Robredo told dzMM.
Atyani, who had previously interviewed al-Qaeda terror leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan months before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, contacted his colleagues on Friday to say that they are being held against their will.
Philippine officials had repeatedly warned Atyani, the bureau chief of Al-Arabiya TV in Pakistan, against interviewing the Abu Sayyaf, but they went ahead and secretly met with terrorist leaders, among them Nadzmie Alih and other rebel commanders.
Atyani’s group arrived June 11 in Sulu after arranging a clandestine interview with Abu Sayyaf leaders. They were first reported missing after failing to return to their hostel in Jolo town, but phoned local officials two days later to say that they were still filming a documentary on the Abu Sayyaf.
Jordan insisted the trio was kidnapped, but Robredo and other security officials denied this and said Atyani’s group went to meet with terrorists on their own volition and despite being prevented by the police and military.
“They can eat, they can roam around, they are not physically deprived, however, their situation has now apparently taken a turn for the worse,” Chief Superintendent Mario Avenido, the regional police chief, said.
The military’s Western Mindanao Command said Atyani had previously filmed in secret the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu province. “Atyani had been in and out of Sulu in the past and secretly interviewing terrorist leaders,” Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang, a regional army spokesman, told the Mindanao Examiner.
Manila said it would not pay ransom or negotiate with terrorists. (Mindanao Examiner)
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