ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / June 15, 2012) – A veteran Jordanian journalist and his two Filipino crew were reported missing in the southern Philippine town of Jolo after the trio failed to return to their hotel, police said Friday.
It said Baker Atyani, the Pakistan bureau chief of the Al-Arabiya TV, and Rolando Letrero and Ramelito Vela, have been missing since June 12, a day after they arrived by plane in Jolo from Zamboanga City.
“We don’t know what happened to them, but authorities are now searching for them,” said Senior Superintendent Antonio Freyra, the provincial police chief.
Jolo Mayor Hussin Amin did not give any statement and ignored telephone calls from journalists. Atyani’s television company also did not release any statement about its missing crew.
It was not immediately known why Atyani was in Jolo, but the Jemaah Islamiya militants, blamed for deadly 2002 Bali bombings, are actively operating alongside the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf fighters.
Police did not say whether Atyani was sent by the Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV to interview the terrorist groups.
Chief Superintendent Manuel Barcena, head of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations for Western Mindanao, said they are investigating the disappearance of the television news crew.
“We are investigating the disappearance of the television crew and we have directed our forces to find the trio,” he said.
The military’s Western Mindanao Command said it has no report about the missing television news crew. “We have no report about it and have not receive anything from the military in Jolo,” said Army Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang, a regional military spokesman.
Atyani, who was a former bureau chief of the Middle East Broadcasting Company, had previously interviewed Al-Qaeda terror leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri in June 2001 near Kandahar in Afghanistan, who hinted to him about what would become the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Al-Arabiya is an Arabic-language television news station launched in March 2003 and is partly owned by the Saudi broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting Center. (Mindanao Examiner)
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