Senior Abu Sayyaf member arrested

A suspect implicated in the kidnapping of a Spanish missionary on the southern island of Basilan was captured by soldiers late on Saturday, nine years after he committed the crime, officials said yesterday.

Southern military chief Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya said security forces arrested the 36-year-old Abdul Marayin in the village of Bato in Lamitan town.

His arrest followed a tip-off from villagers, who positively identified the suspect who is also believed to be a senior member of the militant Abu Sayyaf, he said.

Abaya identified Marayin as one of those who kidnapped Fr. Bernardo Blanco in March 1993, in Basilan.

The Roman Catholic priest escaped from the Abu Sayyaf after 48 days in captivity.

The military also linked Marayin to the 1995 raid on Ipil town in Zamboanga del Sur province that left at least 53 people dead and the killing of dozens of villagers in Basilan since the 1990s.

The raid in Ipil, which also led to the pillage of the entire town by the rebels, was the first large scale operation conducted by the Abu Sayyaf. The attack gave the group lasting notoriety. Abaya said the arrest was a big blow to the Abu Sayyaf.

"This is a big breakthrough because Marayin was a key aide to the slain Abu Sayyaf chieftain, Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani and he has a string of criminal cases that are enough to make him spend his remaining life in jail," he told reporters.

He said Marayin was a founding member of the Abu Sayyaf when it was organised in 1990 by Janjalani, a charismatic rebel leader who preached the tenets of Islam to Basilan's impoverished people.

Janjalani was killed in a gunfight with police forces in December 1998 in Basilan.

His younger brother, Khadaffi Janjalani, assumed leadership of the group after his death, continuing a campaign of kidnapping, bomb attacks and assassinations in their native province and nearby Zamboanga City.

Abaya said initial military reports accused Marayin of being behind many kidnappings and killings in Basilan, including a village chieftain, his son and three others who were abducted and executed in Maluso town.

The Abu Sayyaf, linked by the United States to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida terror network, was also blamed for the series of bomb attacks in Zamboanga City in October that killed scores of people, including an American soldier participating in a joint military exercise.

The group has also been blamed for the abduction of dozens of foreigners and Filipinos between April 2000, and late 2001 whom they took to Basilan's adjacent island of Sulu.

The Philippine government has refused to talk peace with the Abu Sayyaf, which it considers a terrorist group.