PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 8, 2013) – Philippine authorities said kidnappers freed Friday afternoon a Canadian toddler and his nanny in the southern region in Mindanao.
General Ricardo Rainier Cruz III, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, said the toddler Timothy Sokolov was released along with the nanny in a shopping mall in Ozamis City in the neighboring province in Misamis Occidental.
He said unidentified men barged in the boy’s house in the village of Dao in Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur province on Thursday and seized the one-year old baby and the woman. The gang later contacted the boy’s family and demanded P15 million ransom, but it was not immediately whether money was paid or not for their safe release.
Cruz said initial investigations pointed to the woman as the principal suspect in the kidnapping. “There is an initial report linking the nanny to the kidnapping,” Cruz told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said the baby has been handed to his family, while his nanny is now undergoing police debriefing in Pagadian City. (Mindanao Examiner. With a report from E. Dumaboc)
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