Sayyaf Hostage Is Beheaded In Jolo Island

August 12, 2006 at 5:06 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

ZAMBOANGA CITY (Zamboanga Journal / 12 Aug) Suspected Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded one of their two kidnapped victims in Jolo island, about 950 km south of Manila, where security forces were battling the terrorist group tied to the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiya network, officials said Saturday.

Officials said the severed head of Jeffrey Selvin, 27, was found by civilians in front of the police headquarters in downtown Jolo at around 6 a.m. Saturday, but his body had not been recovered.

The man and his mother Jacky Selvin, 58, were kidnapped July 27 outside their house at Gandasuli Road in Jolo. The woman, whose fate remains unknown, owns a bakery shop in Jolo.

Brig. Gen. Alexander Aleo, the island’s military chief, said troops were pursuing the Abu Sayyaf. “We are tracking down the terrorists on the island,” he said.

In June, suspected Abu Sayyaf gunmen freed a kidnapped 41-year old pharmacy owner Bren Vergara after more than two months in captivity after their family allegedly paid more than one million pesos in ransom. The man was snatched April 12 together with his ailing 70-year old mother Caridad Vergara, who had been earlier freed near Jolo town.

Officials said both hostages were tortured by their guards during their captivity in the mountain and the man was beaten so badly to the point that he nearly died. Gunmen snatched the duo outside their pharmacy store in downtown Jolo.

In August 2002, the Abu Sayyaf also beheaded two male members of a Jehovah’s Witness, a Christian sect, two days after militants kidnapped them and four other women in Jolo.

Their severed heads were found inside plastic bags containing notes calling for “jihad against infidel and non-believers of Islam” in the main market in Jolo town. Their relatives said the six were not on Jolo to proselytize the island’s Muslim population, but only selling cosmetics and herbal teas to supplement their income.

The notes included a passage from the Koran and were written in Arabic and the local Tausug dialect. “This is what will happen to those who do not believe in Allah…This is part of our jihad,” said a note found near one of the heads.

The Abu Sayyaf had carried high-profile kidnappings in the past, including a daring raid on the Malaysian resort island of Sipadan in 2000 where it seized 21 Asian and European holiday-makers, and a similar attack on the posh Dos Palmas resort in the central Philippine island of Palawan a year later where militants seized 17 Filipinos and three U.S. citizens, two of whom, including an American hostage, were later killed and beheaded.

Washington offered as much as $5 million bounty for known Abu Sayyaf leaders, including Khadaffy Janjalani. President Gloria Arroyo also put up P100 million rewards for the capture of the group’s leaders and their members dead or alive.