Ex-hostage who tempted fate anew is beheaded

MANILA, Philippines — In 2008, Juergen Kantner and his partner were abducted from their sailboat, held for 52 days in Somalia and released after a six-figure ransom was reportedly paid.

Then he went back to Somalia to get his boat.

On Monday, the Philippine and German governments identified Kantner, 70, as the man with shaggy white hair and an unkempt beard who was shown being beheaded in a video released by a Philippine militant group, Abu Sayyaf. It had demanded $600,000 in ransom for Kantner and had set a deadline of Monday for the two governments to comply.

“We are deeply shaken at this inhuman and horrifying act,” Germany’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “We condemn the murder of this German in the strongest possible terms. There is no justification for such an act.”

After three decades sailing the oceans, Kantner and his partner, Sabine Merz, had continued to sail in dangerous waters despite the 2008 ordeal. They were seized in November while sailing in an area of the southern Philippines under the control of Abu Sayyaf. Their 53-foot yacht, the Rockall, was found on Nov. 7 with a dead woman later identified as Merz, 59, still aboard.

Media reports said a spokesman for Abu Sayyaf had accused Merz of firing on them, and they shot her dead.

In a video circulated this month by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites, Kantner said the Islamist militants would behead him soon if they did not receive a ransom.

The video showed Kantner, hogtied and slumped to the ground with a machetewielding militant behind him. The bearded and disheveled hostage says faintly, “Now they’ll kill me.”

The Philippines denounced the killing. “Up to the last moment, many sectors, including the armed forces of the Philippines, exhausted all efforts to save his life. We all tried our best, but to no avail,” said Jesus Dureza, an adviser to President Rodrigo Duterte.