Militants ‘happily’ beheaded Canadians
Hall’s freed fiancée describes how two hostages were led to their deaths in the jungle
MANILA, PHILIPPINES— Abu Sayyaf extremists rejoiced as they watched two Canadians being beheaded in the jungles of the southern Philippines, said a still-shocked Filipino hostage who was freed Friday.
Marites Flor tearfully recalled to reporters the harrowing moment when Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall were handcuffed and led away to a nearby jungle clearing to be separately decapitated in April and early this month by the ransom-seeking militants.
She said that Hall, who was killed early last week, was her fiancé. Ridsdel was beheaded by the militants in April.
“It’s so painful because I saw them moments before they got beheaded,” Flor told reporters in southern Davao city, where she was flown to meet president-elect Rodrigo Duterte after her release in nearby Sulu province.
“They were watching it and they were happy,” she said of the militants, adding that she did not witness the killings.
Flor said she was slapped and threatened and her fellow hostages were beaten when the militants disliked what they were doing. “They told me, ‘Robert’s head has been chopped off. You’re next,’ ” she said. “They treated us like dogs, like children.”
Flor was abducted with Hall, Ridsdel and Norwegian Kjartan Sekking-stad from a yacht resort on southern Samal Island in September last year and taken to the jungles of the predominantly Muslim island province of Sulu. The militants killed the two Canadians after ransom deadlines lapsed.
“They told me, ‘Robert’s head has been chopped off. You’re next.’ They treated us like dogs.” MARITES FLOR FREED HOSTAGE
The captives were among some two dozen people held by Abu Sayyaf this year.
On Friday, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said that seven Indonesians were abducted by armed men who raided their tugboat and took them to Sulu, in a third such attack. Six others were released with the vessel, she said.
Duterte cut short his speech in a nationally televised police ceremony when officials arrived and brought the 38-year-old Flor, who appeared still distraught, to the stage where he spoke.
Duterte tried to console her and quietly asked a few questions.
Shortly before facing Flor, Duterte asked the Abu Sayyaf militants to stop ransom kidnappings, which he said have given the country “a very bad image.” He warned people against joining Abu Sayyaf, suggesting a major offensive was forthcoming.
“There will be, I said, a reckoning one of these days,” he said.
It was not immediately clear if a ransom was paid to secure the freedom of Flor, who appeared in Abu Sayyaf videos tearfully pleading for her life and those of her companions. In a final video, she called on Duterte to save their lives before the extremists killed Hall a few days later.
Rebels belonging to the larger Moro National Liberation Front and a Sulu official, Abdusakur Tan, helped negotiate Flor’s release with an Abu Sayyaf commander identified as Hatib Sawadjaan, two officials from the military and police, who monitored the talks, told The Associated Press.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the killings and called on other nations not to pay ransom if their citizens are abducted to discourage the brutal militants from carrying out more ransom kidnappings.