National Post (National Edition)
‘I did not escape. I could not leave my friend.’
In an exclusive interview with the National Post, survivor Kjartan Sekkingstad of Norway reveals the horrors of the Philippines kidnappings that killed Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall.
Run, duck. Run, duck.
Deep in the jungles of Sulu province, in the southern Philippines islands, Kjartan Sekkingstad pushed through darkness in search of a way out.
It was April 2016, seven months after armed Islamist militants had kidnapped the Norwegian, along with two Canadian men and a Filipina woman, in a high profile hostage-for-ransom case.
Sekkingstad saw an opportunity to escape when Philippines military forces launched a surprise middle-of-the-night air assault on the group, sending his captors fleeing all directions.
“I got away from the guy who was watching me. He ran for cover himself. And I was sort of free,” Sekkingstad, then 56, said.
As he fought through dense brush in darkness, he had to crouch behind trees or rocks to dodge the machine-gun fire from the helicopters above. Like a scene out of a war movie, tracer bullets zigged and zagged in every direction. It was “total chaos,” he recalled. But his freedom was short-lived. He soon stumbled upon one of his fellow captives, Canadian John Ridsdel, a man with whom he’d developed a close bond.
Ridsdel had suffered a broken rib in the attack and was moving slowly. Sekkingstad couldn’t leave his “soul mate” behind.
“I got him on my shoulder … and we walked back,” Sekkingstad said. “I did not escape. I could not leave my friend.”
Less than 24 hours later, on April 25, 2016, Sekkingstad watched helplessly as Ridsdel said goodbye to his two grown daughters and was led away by the militants and beheaded — the first of two executions.
Robert Hall, the other Canadian among the hostages, would be executed on June 13, 2016.
“What can I say? We were all sad,” Sekkingstad said. “But we didn’t have time to mourn him, because we were so busy surviving … We were told right away, ‘You’re next! You’re next!” It’s been almost a year since Sekkingstad’s release from captivity and he has agreed to speak indepth about his ordeal for the first time with the National Post.
The place he chose to meet is his family’s seafood processing plant on Sotra, a quiet island off Norway, just west of Bergen. Tall, lanky with deep-set eyes, Sekkingstad appears relaxed as he skippers his aging workboat through quiet channels that have been travelled by his family for generations.
Sekkingstad’s love affair with the sea started at a young age and never stopped. “The boat is my home,” he said. “If I don’t like the neighbours, I just move.”
But his demeanour changes inside the offices of the family business as he slowly and methodically recounts the horror of being in captivity for almost a year. He frequently pauses to gather his thoughts and he nervously picks at his fingernails. His shoulders tense up. At times, he wraps his hands around his elbows as if giving himself a hug.
The ordeal started late on the evening of Sept. 21, 2015, at the Holiday Oceanview Marina, a boat resort on Samal Island, in the southern Philippines.
Sekkingstad helped build and manage the marina with the family of his late common-law wife, Ellen Lee-Kwen Bangayan, who had passed away suddenly in 2013 from a blocked brain vessel.
Sekkingstad already had a strong Canadian connection. Years earlier, he worked for a fish farming company on the B.C. coast. He fell in love with the tall trees and the West Coast wilderness and spent more than 12 years there. It is also where he met Bangayan, who was an office manager at the same company.
The couple spent five years sailing around the world together — California, Mexico, French Polynesia and New Zealand — on Sekkingstad’s 48-foot yacht, Wiskun, before settling in Bangayan’s native Philippines in 2007. (In the Haida language, Wiskun means “happy place,” he said).
The marina, which opened in 2011, was a safe place for boaters to park their vessels because of its location south of the typhoon belt.
“It was paradise until this incident happened,” Sekkingstad said.
That night, he was awoken by his barking Labrador dog, Sheeba. “Why is the dog barking at this hour? She never does. So I got up on deck and at that point, I heard somebody calling, ‘Help! Help!’ It was a male. I just ran to see if I could help this person.”
The cries were coming from an American man staying at the marina with his Japanese wife.
As Sekkingstad ran toward them, he saw they were being manhandled by a couple of “small guys.”
“At this point, I didn’t quite know, I thought it was some petty theft or somebody wanted to grab a wallet. I thought I could … clear it up.”
That’s when John Ridsdel, who earlier that day had taken his new catamaran for a spin with his Filipina girlfriend, emerged from the shadows.
“Be careful, they have guns,” Ridsdel warned, a gun pointed at his own head.
Moments later, another couple — Robert Hall and his Filipina girlfriend, Marites Flor — emerged from their boat with guns pointed at them.
The gunmen decided to let the American man and Japanese woman go — they had been badly beaten — and took Sekkingstad instead. Listed as a terrorist entity by Canada in 2003, Abu Sayyaf is a loose collection of violent, autonomous gangs spread across the Sulu Archipelago, a chain of islands in southwestern Philippines. Formed in the 1990s with funding from al-Qaida, the group has become notorious in recent years for its use of kidnapfor-ransom as a way to make money.
A year earlier, the same group kidnapped and held a German couple on Jolo Island, freeing them after reportedly receiving a substantial ransom payment.
The four hostages were forced into a cramped, dank compartment underneath the vessel.
“Very uncomfortable. Cannot lay down. Cannot stretch out. … Feet constantly in water because the boat is leaking,” Sekkingstad recalled. “John was the only one who had clothes. I only had a set of shorts, no shoes, no shirt. They threw a tarp over (us). But as soon as we rounded the corner of Samal Island … all the water came over the boat. We got soaked and terribly cold.”
In those early moments, the four remained optimistic. “These guys are idiots. No way they can get away with this,” Sekkingstad remembered thinking. “They’ll be caught.”
For three days, they remained holed up in the boat’s fish compartment, fed just a few pieces of fish and some crackers, and allowed a few sips of coffee and water. They were forced to use a fuel can to relieve themselves.
Their captors asked for their names and backgrounds.
Ridsdel, 68, who was born in London and raised in Saskatchewan, was a semi-retired mining executive with a passion for sailing. He had extensive contacts in the Philippines.
Hall, 66, a Calgary native, was a retired tradesman and actor. He had arrived at the marina with Flor at the beginning of the year.
Sekkingstad led his captors to believe he was a mechanic at the marina without a family (he has a brother, two sisters and elderly parents in a care home). For months, his captors were also under the false impression that he was Canadian, something he did not bother to correct. When they finally reached land, a cadre of armed fighters greeted their fellow fighters from the boat with hugs and congratulations.
The hostages were whisked up a mountain in a jeepney and forced to march into the jungle all night. They finally set up camp and were allowed to get some rest at daybreak.
It had now become evident to the hostages that this was “going to take time,” Sekkingstad said.
Over the next several months, the group was constantly on the move, never staying in the same spot more than a few days.
“Most of the time, they’re trying not to expose themselves to clear skies and open areas. Whenever there’s a campsite, there’s trees and coverage so helicopters or planes cannot spot them,” Sekkingstad said.
Sekkingstad kept track of the days in his head. “That was my job. I knew exactly what day it was. I kept on counting,” he said.
They were fed servings of rice, fish, crackers and dark coffee. Flor would pretend the food they were eating was something better — like cupcakes — to keep their spirits up.
“When you’re starving, even in your sleep, you dream about food, right?” Sekkingstad said.
At night, the hostages would be handcuffed together: Hall with Flor and Ridsdel with Sekkingstad. If one person had to relieve themselves, they would have to wake up the other person.
Their bed was a flimsy tarp. When it rained they had another tarp for a makeshift roof. “I had a blanket. It was given to us shortly after we got there. We had to take care of it, keep it clean,” said Sekkingstad.
“They had guards watching us all the time, keeping us awake on purpose, just to break us down physically and mentally.
“The weaker we become, the more they laugh. They think it’s funny like hell.”
During quiet periods, their captors would take turns resting in hammocks. They prayed several times a day. The hostages were instructed not to interrupt them during prayers.
The hostages were allowed to get a bit of exercise each day, but couldn’t walk more than 50 feet from their campsite.
“I was wearing some kind of slippers in the beginning, second hand, then later on, I got old military boots with holes in them. But they were a lot better than anything else.”
Among the militants, there was a clear hierarchical structure. One of the junior fighters — a skinny, arrogant man who the hostages came to know as “Abu Omar” — served as the hostages’ liaison to the group’s leaders. He also appeared as a spokesman in ransom videos, wearing a mask. Sometimes he carried a revolver, other times a rifle.
When they felt it was safe, the militants would bring their wives and children to the campsites to visit. The wives would sometimes bring fresh vegetables and small amounts would be shared with the hostages.
On a couple of occasions, Flor pleaded with the wife of one of the leaders to reduce the ransom demands, to no avail. The first ransom video was posted October 2015, about three weeks into their ordeal. About a dozen militants, clad in military garb, surround the four hostages who are seated on the ground.
One of them is holding a machete near Ridsdel’s head. No explicit ransom demands are made in the video. Instead, the hostages and one of the masked fighters take turns urging the Philippine government to stop its military assaults.
“We were told what to say (on the video),” said Sekkingstad. They were beaten or cut if they didn’t.
“If you behave, you’re a good boy, say what they want you to say on the video, you get an extra cracker or cookie, like treats to your dog.”
Sekkingstad said the fighters laughed as they re-watched the video on their iPhones. The hostages had to re-shoot the videos if the militants were not happy with it.
A second video released the following month came with a more dire warning: If the kidnappers did not receive 1 billion pesos — CDN $25 million — for each hostage, they would kill them.
MOST OF THE TIME, THEY’RE TRYING NOT TO EXPOSE THEMSELVES TO CLEAR SKIES AND OPEN AREAS. WHENEVER THERE’S A CAMPSITE, THERE’S TREES AND COVERAGE SO HELICOPTERS OR PLANES CANNOT SPOT THEM — KJARTAN SEKKINGSTAD
In Sotra, Sekkingstad’s family was not overly worried by the ransom videos because the amount demanded was so outrageous. Working with various Norwegian and Philippines government and police officials, they focused on what tactic to adopt.
At one point, the anti-kidnapping division of the Philippines National Police presented the families with eight different options, said Sekkingstad’s brother, Odd-Kare, who also talked to the Post.
“It put us in a difficult situation,” he said.
On the advice of Philippines authorities, the family chose to play a game of trickery — telling the militants that they were doing everything they could to pool money together — selling cars, boats and mortgaging homes. In reality, they had not done any of those things, at least not yet.
“We had to give the impression that we were doing all we can,” said Odd-Kare.
In the jungle, Ridsdel had received encouraging words by phone from staff at the Canadian embassy in the Philippines. They indicated they were working on “nothing else” but this case, Sekkingstad said.
They also gave the hostages a hotline they could call to reach a third party who was assisting the embassy in the negotiations. The person on the other end was named “Joon” — short for Junior, an alias.
They passed the time as best they could. “John and me … we became like soul mates,” Sekkingstad said. “We were thinking about — planning is not the right word — maybe dreaming, what we were going to do when we got out of there.”
Ridsdel had a boat he wanted to sell. They talked about sailing it to Malaysia together and putting it on the market there.
Ridsdel also talked non-stop about his daughters — his “little girls.”
“I had to remind him they’re not little girls anymore,” Sekkingstad said. In March 2016, a third video was released showing Ridsdel, Hall and Sekkingstad bearded, shirtless and skeleton-thin.
Ridsdel made a direct appeal to the Canadian prime minister to “do as needed to meet their demands within one month or they will kill me, they will execute us.”
The following month, a fourth ransom video, with a specific deadline, was released. The hostages made a “final urgent appeal” to pay the kidnappers 300 million pesos — CDN $8 million — for each of the hostages.
“We’re told that this is the absolute final warning, so this is a final urgent appeal to governments — Philippines, Canadian — and families, if 300 million is not paid for me by 3 p.m. on April 25, they will behead me,” Ridsdel says in the grainy video.
“My specific appeal is to the Canadian government,” Hall says, “who I know has the capacity to get us out of here. I wonder what they are waiting for.”
With the introduction of a deadline, “we are thinking, this is getting serious now,” Sekkingstad said.
“I remember John tried (to think) where we could raise money. He gave the names and addresses for former employers, his daughters of course … to see if he can raise some money and save our lives.”
But the third party that the hostages had been in phone contact with was not so encouraging now, telling them that while a significant amount had been raised privately, it didn’t meet the captors’ target.
The day before the deadline, the spokesman for the fighters put Ridsdel on the phone with one of his daughters.
“Say goodbye to your father,” the spokesman said on the phone. “He will be beheaded tomorrow if you don’t have 300 million pesos by tomorrow.”
That afternoon, the militants spotted a drone flying over their campsite. They packed up and were on the move. Hours into their trek, Filipino military forces launched their air attack. Three helicopters swooped in from different directions, unleashing a volley of machine gun fire.
“They shot at everything. … They couldn’t tell the difference. Blasted whatever they could,” Sekkingstad said.
The following day was the ransom deadline. Given the aerial assault the night before, the hostages hoped their captors would let the deadline pass.
But as the deadline approached, the kidnappers took Ridsdel and handcuffed him. They put him on the phone one final time with his daughter in Canada.
“Bring 300 million right now,” Sekkingstad overheard the spokesman saying into the phone.
“We don’t have that much,” one of his daughter’s replied back.
“Whatever you have, send it. … Whatever you can get together,” Sekkingstad heard Ridsdel saying.
The spokesman broke in: “If you don’t have enough, don’t bother.”
“(John) said goodbye to his daughters. ‘Love you all. Had a great life. Don’t blame yourself. You’ve done the best you could to save my life.’ I remember he said … ‘the Canadian government sucks.’ He said that too. He probably had reason to say it.
“Then Robert, me and Marites were ordered to lay flat on the ground. And they walked John a little bit away. But not far enough. We could still hear his cries.”
Later that night, “we saw the leader come back cleaning all the blood off his knife. Then we knew for sure that it’s…” Sekkingstad said, his voice trailing off. In Norway, upon receiving the grim news of Ridsdel’s death from Norwegian police, Sekkingstad’s family realized they had to prepare for worst-case scenarios.
They also decided not to engage the kidnappers directly until the later stages.
That spring, the brothers were able to speak to each other by phone. Odd-Kare told his brother their parents were doing OK.
Behind the scenes, the family had been working to pool money together privately. Odd-Kare declined to go into specifics, but said the Norwegian government was not a participant. Like Canada, it has an official policy of not paying ransoms to terrorists.
In a subsequent conversation, the brothers knew the captors were listening in. “The purpose of that call was to tell the terrorists there was nothing more. We’ve got everything — even got (Kjartan’s) money saved in Canada,” Odd-Kare said.
Another video was released in May 2016. Hall appeals to Rodrigo Duterte, the newly elected president of the Philippines since, “it appears my government has abandoned me and my family in this endeavour.” Duterte campaigned on a promise to take a tough stance against Abu Sayyaf militants.
Sekkingstad then appeals to the Philippines, Canadian and Norwegian governments to try to negotiate a solution by June 13 at 3 p.m. Or they will be executed.
Sekkingstad and Hall had made an agreement. If they knew death was coming to them, they would put up a fight.
“Being handcuffed down on your knee, having your head chopped off, is not a very honourable way to die,” Sekkingstad said. “If it came to it, we knew for sure we were going to be beheaded, we were going to run for their guns. It would be suicide, but at least we could take out probably six or eight of them.”
Hall would not get a chance to carry out the plan.
Just before his execution on June 13, the militants tricked him, telling him that he was going back to Canada.
Then they slapped cuffs on him before he was able to put up any resistance. They allowed Flor to give Hall a final hug and then led him away. Ten days after Hall’s execution, they freed Flor. Over that summer, negotiations intensified to secure Sekkingstad’s release. One of the leaders issued a blunt warning to negotiators.
“If he doesn’t get more money he’s going to chop my head off,” Sekkingstad said. “If he gets a little more, they cut my arms off. If they get a bit more, they can send me off with one arm. This goes on and on.”
Meanwhile, Sekkingstad, who had lost 20 kilograms over the past year, said he continued to be treated like a slave, forced to carry the group’s equipment, including a heavy munition that looked like something you shoot out of a bazooka.
Sekkingstad remained skeptical when members of the group told him they were preparing for his release.
Then one day in September 2016, the group spokesman, Abu Omar, asked him the meaning of the name of his boat, Wiskun. Negotiators needed to be sure that the man who was about to be released was indeed Sekkingstad.
The following day, when a group leader asked if he had a clean shirt, Sekkingstad knew his ordeal was coming to a close.
The militants gathered about 50 fighters to escort him away from the camp, down to a rendezvous point.
A group leader took his hand and ran him over to members of the Moro National Liberation Front, a former rebel group now working with the Philippines government.
“You’re with them now,” he was told.
The Abu Sayyaf fighters then disappeared back into the bushes.
It is not clear how much in ransom was paid to secure his release. Various media reports suggested between 30 and 50 million pesos — CDN$700,000 to $1 million — but Sekkingstad’s brother said there were inaccuracies in the media reports.
They wouldn’t go into specifics, but the Sekkingstad family credited a one-on-one meeting they had with the Philippines peace minister, Jesus Dureza, in Oslo in the late stages of the kidnapping for bringing a resolution to the case. The meeting was arranged by Norway’s foreign minister.
A convoy of jeepneys then drove Sekkingstad to a safe house where he was able to eat, shower and sleep.
The next day, at the airport in Davao City, Sekkingstad met Duterte, the new Philippines president.
“We’ll get them one day,” Duterte assured him.
After a press conference, and a short detour back to Samal Island to check on his marina and visit with friends and his late wife’s family, he boarded a plane for Norway.
On the drive to his family’s home, people all along the route flew the Norwegian flag in his honour — a gesture he said he will never forget. Looking back, Sekkingstad says he understands why governments have adopted a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, as it would set a “bad precedent.”
But he says he can’t help but feel that governments should remain flexible. “When people are trapped in a situation, it is like getting a death sentence, because there is no way out.”
Since his return to Norway, Sekkingstad has thrown himself back to work in the family business. He has read some of the press coverage of his ordeal, but has not watched any of the ransom videos.
Despite what he endured, he has not lost faith in humanity.
“After all the evil things I’ve been through, I still believe in the good in people,” he said. “These terrorists are exceptions. Some days up in the bush, the fighters would ask, ‘How are you?’ I would say, ‘I’m OK.’ But what I really meant to say was, ‘I’m much better than them.’ Because if I did get out of there, I would have a life. They don’t have a life. All they do is destruct. They don’t create anything. They don’t build anything. They just destroy. They’re their own prisoners in the bush. If they get out of there they get arrested. Or they get killed.”
His kidnappers have not been caught.
ALL THEY DO IS DESTRUCT. THEY DON’T CREATE ANYTHING. THEY DON’T BUILD ANYTHING. THEY JUST DESTROY. THEY’RE THEIR OWN PRISONERS IN THE BUSH. IF THEY GET OUT OF THERE THEY GET ARRESTED. OR THEY GET KILLED. — SEKKINGSTAD