Police arrest Islamist bandit accused of kidnapping Red Cross workers

Manila: A member of the Al Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf Group was arrested for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of three workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern Philippines in 2009, a police report said on Wednesday.

Policemen arrested Abu Sayyaf member Adzhar Patta Mawalil on Jolo island on Tuesday. He was brought to a military headquarter in Zamboanga City late Tuesday, to face charges filed against him, Jolo provincial police operations chief Amil Banaan said in a belated report that reached Manila on Wednesday.

Last January 2009, an Abu Sayyaf Group led d by Albader Parad kidnapped International Committee of the Red Cross workers Andreas Notter, a Swiss national; Eugenio Vagni, an Italian national; and Mary-Jean Lacaba, a Filipina, near Jolo's City Jail where the ICRC workers were investigating ICRC's water supply project for the southern area's jail system.

Mawalil was one of Parad's trusted members of the Abu Sayyaf, during the 2009 kidnapping in Jolo, said Banaan in a report that reached the police headquarters in Manila.

Notter had escaped from the kidnappers after five days; Lacaba freed after two and a half months; and Vagni escaped after six months. Local government officials said that ransom was not paid for the freedom of the kidnap-victims.

Mawalil was also alleged as part of Parad's team that kidnapped and beheaded seven Filipinos, in different incidents in the south in April 2007, said Banaan in a report that was read to the media in Manila by Philippine National Police spokesman Agrimero Cruz.

Last year, Parad was killed in a clash with military men in Jolo.

Last Sunday, suspected Abu Sayyaf members released a naturalized American veterinarian, but kept her 14-year old son, a half-American, and her Filipino nephew in captivity in the south. They were kidnapped in her resort off Zamboanga last July.

The Abu Sayyaf Group has been blamed for kidnap-for-ransom, beheadings, bombings and other terror activities in the south since the 1990s.

American soldiers have been allowed to extend intelligence assistance to Filip[ino soldiers who are tracking down members of the Abu Sayyaf Group.

It has links with the Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian conduit of the Al Qaida terror network.

It was established in the south in the 90s, with the help of non-government-organizations that were established there by the brother in-law of Osama bin Laden.