Manila: Two Malaysian seaweed farmers who were abducted last February on Malaysia's Borneo island allegedly by Malaysian kidnappers linked to Al Qaida, were released on southern Philippines' Tawi Tawi late on Tuesday, police said.
Chen Yui Chung, 48, and Lai Wong Chun, 46, were found on Bongao, Tawi Tawi. They were flown to Manila and were turned over to the Malaysian Embassy, Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Raul Bacalzo said yesterday.
"I am pleased to announce the successful rescue of two Malaysian kidnap victims in Tawi-Tawi," said Bacalzo, adding the freed victims were initially debriefed by Philippine authorities before they were flown to Manila.
The Philippine police monitored for several days the movement of the kidnappers who were identified as Malaysian Islamic bandits, said Bacalzo, adding, "When the police and the military were about to launch a rescue operation, the kidnappers fled and left their captives."
Rescue
Philippine policemen picked up the two Malaysian nationals on the Bongao coast, said Bacalzo.
The monitoring began earlier, in June, when the Philippine police monitored a cell phone call made by one of the kidnap victims to his family in Malaysia, police sources said.
It is not known if the ransom demands of the kidnappers were paid, another source told Gulf News.
One of the kidnap-victims was quoted as saying that they were brought by their captors from Borneo to the southern Philippines, Bacalzo said.
They did not say how long they had stayed in the southern Philippines since they were kidnapped last February, Bacalzo said.
Tawi-Tawi Governor Sadikul Sahali said in a radio interview that the kidnapped Malaysians were brought back and forth from Tawi Tawi to Jolo.
Intelligence sources said the Malaysian kidnappers have ties with the Abu Sayyaf Group in the southern Philippines.
When the victims went missing last February 8, Malaysian authorities did not name them, but they were described as a manager and a supervisor of a seaweed farm in Semporna, Sabah.
Authorities said then that the victims were taken during a payroll robbery attempt, adding that the gunmen forced their victims inside a narrow-hulled boat.
The Abu Sayyaf Group has been keeping members of the Jemaah Islamiyah in the southern Philippines, who are wanted either in Malaysia or Indonesia.
