|
Arab Father Of Kidnapped "British" Girl In Philippines Offers To Pay Ransom
KUWAIT CITY (News Agencies) - The Arab father of a six-year-old "British" girl kidnapped at gunpoint in the Philippines offered here Tuesday to pay a ransom to her captors, the Aby Sayyaf group.
"I am 100% ready" to pay the $2,930 reportedly demanded by the kidnappers. "I'll do whatever I can. She is just a helpless girl," 52-year-old Jordanian Azzam Mohammad Hamed told the Arab Times newspaper.
Hamed and the girl's mother, Mina Rasul, married in Kuwait eight years ago but have since divorced. Rasul remarried to Douglas Grant, a British Muslim convert, and she, and her daughter, April, now are British citizens, he said.
"I believe the kidnappers abducted my daughter in Mindanao last week because she holds a British passport," said Hamed, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin who has lived in Kuwait for more than four decades.
"I am sure if the kidnappers know they are Muslims, they would not have taken the girl," he added, offering to swap places with April. Hamed said he has already spoken with the Philippine embassy in Kuwait.
The police chief in the southern Philippine island of Basilan, Akmadul Pangambayan, said Abu Sayyaf members were planning attacks but was unsure if this was linked to their abduction of April Azzam Grant from an island town last week.
Meanwhile, local army commander Major Daniel Lucero said authorities had identified two of the girl's abductors as relatives of her mother, a charge denied by the woman.
"We will initiate the filing of criminal charges against those who are involved in the kidnapping," he said, without elaborating.
The Abu Sayyaf group made international headlines last year when they abducted a group of mostly foreign tourists whom they later ransomed off for millions of dollars.
|
