ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines, 14 August 2004 — A southern Philippine court yesterday found guilty and sentenced to death 17 members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group for the kidnapping of four people from a hospital in the southern island of Basilan three years ago.
Only 13 of the militants were present when the sentences were read out before a tightly secured courtroom in Basilan. The other four accused escaped from a detention center last April.
Handing down the sentences, Judge Danilo Bucoy ordered the condemned to pay hundreds of thousands of pesos to the victims’ families.
“This is a strong signal that government is determined to wipe out terrorism in the south,” Aileen Marie Gutierrez, a state prosecutor, said. He said the 17 men kidnapped three nurses and a laborer from a hospital in Basilan in June 2001. One of the nurses, Ediborah Yap, was killed in a military rescue operation in July 2002, which also resulted in the death of American missionary Martin Burnham. The two other nurses were freed after months of captivity while the laborer managed to escape.
Under heavy escorts, the convicted militants were taken to the national penitentiary in the capital Manila last night as they await the Supreme Court’s review of their cases, said a defense department spokesman.
A navy boat brought them from Basilan to the main military headquarters in Zamboanga City, where an air force transport plane ferried the convicts to Manila.
Maj. Gen. Generoso Senga, commander of military forces in the southern Philippines, said the transfer was part of security precautions as four of those convicted had escaped in April in a mass jailbreak from Basilan’s provincial jail. He said 53 prisoners had escaped on April 10 after subduing a handful of armed guards who were preparing lunch at the Basilan provincial jail. Only about two dozens had been recaptured, nine killed and nearly 20 remained at large.
