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By Mynardo Macaraig MANILA (AFP) - An American held captive by Abu Sayyaf kidnappers in the southern Philippines may have gone willingly to the gunmen's hideout, the government's highest security official said Thursday.
"We have feedback from our field units that it's as if it is a 'willing' kidnapping," National Security Adviser Alexander Aguirre said, referring to the abduction of Jeffrey Schilling, 24, by the Jolo island-based Abu Sayyaf group. Aguirre said Schilling was seen with his Filipina Muslim fiancée going to Jolo with Abu Sayyaf members from the southern city of Zamboanga before the gunmen announced on Tuesday they had kidnapped him. "Mr. Schilling willingly went with the Abu Sayyaf leaders when he was accompanied there [to Jolo] from Zamboanga City," Aguirre said. He also cited the statement given by Schilling's fiancée, Ivi Usani, to the police that she was a relative of Abu Sayyaf commander Abu Sabaya. Aguirre said the government had to "further validate and look deeper into that." He suggested that Schilling, a convert to Islam, might have made the trip "for propaganda purposes." Aguirre said that if Schilling had indeed gone of his own accord, "we will not be [as] interested because there is willingness on his part." The Abu Sayyaf gunmen have said Schilling is a hostage and have threatened to kill him unless Washington freed several convicted Muslim terrorists in U.S. prisons. Zamboanga police Superintendent Karib Muammil said Usani told police that the Abu Sayyaf sent out an invitation to visit their hideout and that the couple had gone to Jolo where they were met by Abu Sayyaf members. Muammil said the Abu Sayyaf escorted the couple to their jungle base but that once there, a "misunderstanding" occurred between Abu Sabaya and the American. The group then decided to hold Schilling, accusing him of being an agent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Muammil quoted Usani as saying. The U.S. embassy has denied that Schilling is a CIA agent. The Abu Sayyaf had kidnapped dozens of foreigners and locals in recent months and has released them only in small batches, usually in exchange for ransoms. Aside from Schilling, they are still holding six Europeans and 18 Filipinos. As they released more foreign hostages, the Abu Sayyaf were growing desperate to grab new foreign captives in order to keep the military from assaulting their Jolo lair, the government warned. Despite these well-publicized risks, Schilling had apparently gone to the island; perhaps believing his fiancée’s relation to Abu Sabaya would protect him. After Usani returned to Zamboanga unharmed, Sabaya accused her in a radio interview of being a government agent. Schilling reportedly met Usani through the Internet and arrived in Philippines as a tourist in March, getting visa extensions three times despite the turmoil in Jolo and appeals from his U.S. based mother, Carole Schilling, for him to leave. Schilling graduated from the University of California in Berkeley last year with a degree in Near Eastern Studies. His mother said he had long been interested in the Philippines, particularly the country's poverty-stricken Muslim minority. He had reportedly befriended Filipino Muslims in California. |
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