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MANILA, Philippines — Two long-wanted Abu Sayyaf militant commanders accused of beheading two kidnapped Canadian vacationers and a German within the southern Philippines have surrendered to authorities, officers stated Friday.
Almujer Yadah and Bensito Quitino gave themselves as much as army officers in Jolo city in southern Sulu province and surrendered their assault rifles, Sulu army commander Maj. Gen. Ignatius Patrimonio and different safety officers stated. The officers didn’t present particulars of how and when the surrenders have been organized.
The 2 have been briefly introduced in a information convention in a military camp in Jolo and later turned over to police.
Sulu provincial police chief Col. Jaime Mojica stated they are going to face a number of homicide and different felony prices, together with violation of the nation’s anti-terrorism regulation. The militants are accused of beheading the hostages after failing to acquire giant ransoms they’d demanded.
In addition they have been concerned in different ransom kidnappings and bomb assaults, Mojica stated.
Canadian vacationers Robert Corridor and John Ridsdel have been kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf gunmen from a marina on southern Samal island together with a Norwegian and a Filipino in September 2015 and brought to jungle camps in Sulu.
Corridor and Ridsdel have been beheaded by the militants months later after the deadline for cost of the ransoms handed. Movies launched by the militants confirmed the victims being brutally killed in entrance of an Islamic State group-style black flag. The Norwegian and Filipino hostages have been finally freed.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated on the time that he was horrified by the killings and affirmed Canada’s refusal to “pay ransoms for hostages to terrorist teams, as doing so would endanger the lives of extra Canadians.” He stated Canada was working with the Philippine authorities “to pursue these liable for these heinous acts and produce them to justice, nonetheless lengthy it takes.”
Different key suspects within the kidnappings and killings of Corridor and Ridsdel have been killed earlier in clashes with Philippine forces.
Mojica stated the 2 militants have been additionally concerned within the 2017 beheading in Sulu of German hostage Jurgen Gustav Kantner. Abu Sayyaf gunmen seized Kantner at gunpoint and killed a lady crusing with him off neighboring Malaysia’s Sabah state. Villagers later discovered a useless girl on a yacht with a German flag off Sulu’s Laparan Island.
The USA and the Philippines have labeled the Abu Sayyaf a terrorist group for kidnappings, beheadings and bombings. The small however brutal group emerged within the early Nineteen Nineties as an extremist offshoot of a decades-long Muslim separatist rebel within the southern Philippines, the homeland of minority Muslims within the largely Roman Catholic nation.
The Abu Sayyaf has been weakened significantly by many years of army offensives, surrenders and infighting, and is at present estimated by the army to have lower than 200 armed fighters, however stays a nationwide safety menace.
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