ABU Sayyaf bandits beheaded a German hostage, 70-year-old Jurgen Kantner, after the deadline for his family to pay a P30-million ransom passed on Sunday.
Initial reports reaching military authorities said Kantner, who spent three months in captivity in the jungles of Sulu, was beheaded somewhere in Indanan, Sulu at about 3:30 p.m., 30 minutes after the deadline lapsed.
“He [German hostage] was beheaded somewhere in Jolo but his decapitated body could not be located yet,” a military source said.
Another source relayed similar reports that Kantner had been beheaded.
“We received the same information. However, we are currently validating it. I have just concluded a meeting with local officials of Indanan, where the beheading took place,” the source said.
Last year, the Abu Sayyaf made good on their threat to behead two Canadian captives—Robert Hall and John Ridsdel, after their families failed to come up with the huge ransom the bandits demanded.
In September 2015, the bandit group abducted Ridsdel and Hall, along with Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad and Filipina Maritess Flor at the Island Garden City of Samal. Sekkingstand and Maritess Flor who were held for months were freed after their ransom was paid.
The fateKantner remained uncertain in the early hours Sunday before the two-week deadline given by his Abu Sayyaf captors lapsed. Security forces launched massive search.
At press time, Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla gave no word of Kantner’s fate.
“The AFP through its area command, the Western Mindanao Command has not received any information regarding the possibility that the hostage was beheaded,” Padilla said.
Kantner along with his partner Sabine Merz were taken by the ASG while they were sailing off the coast of Sabah on board their 50-footer yacht in November last year.
The ASG, in its last video footage released in February, showed Kantner surrounded by heavily armed bandits, one of whom held a bladed weapon tot the victim’s neck.
Kantner, in a kneeling position with a bolo at the back of his head, appealed to his family and his government in German to save him.
On Saturday, the military conducted a series of air strikes on suspected ASG positions somewhere in Patikul, Sulu, where the group holding the German hostages was sighted.
However, there were no reports of the immediate effects of the air offensive by rocket-firing MG-520 attack helicopters and Huey choppers.
Reports said the bandits are still holding 27 local and foreign hostages in the island provinces of Sulu and Basilan.
On Thursday, heavily armed believed to be Abu Sayyaf bandits forcibly took six sailors from the Vietnamese flag ship m/v Giang Hai 05 after they intercepted the vessel, which was cruising 17 nautical miles off Pearl Bank in Tawi-Tawi last Sunday.
The six crewmen as Buy Xuan Vien, the ship captain; Do Huu Nghia, Chiefmate; Bui Trung Duc, 3rd mate; Nguyin Huu Trong, 2nd Engineer; Tran Viet Van, sailor; and Nguyen Quang Huy, oiler, are missing.