ZAMBOANGA CITY, 26 October 2004 — US officials yesterday handed over some $1 million in reward money to informants who helped the government troops kill a senior member of the dreaded Abu Sayyaf group in the southern island of Basilan, officials said yesterday.
Joseph Mussomeli, a senior US embassy official, handed 18.6 million pesos ($330,000) each in cash to a man and two women, who hid their faces under thick brown stockings to protect their identities.
“It takes courage to do what these three people have done,” Mussomeli said at a tightly guarded hospital on Basilan island before handing over the money in brown suitcases. “This is the first, but we hope not the last, reward paid in the Philippines.”
Heavily armed troops stood guard and snipers perched on the roof of the state-run hospital, which was renovated by Filipino and US troops during an anti-terror exercise in 2002. The event was kept off limits to local media.
The three provided vital information that helped to locate Hamsiraji Sali, one of five Abu Sayyaf leaders with a bounty of up to $5 million on their heads, he said.
Salih, who was killed along with five of his followers one of five Abu Sayyaf leaders wanted by the United States for the killing of Californian Guillermo Sobero and Kansas missionary Martin Burnham.
Sobero and Burnham were among 20 people abducted by the Abu Sayyaf gang in a resort in the southwestern province of Palawan in May 2001. They demanded the release of three international terrorists, including Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a prime suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bomb attack in New York, in exchange for the freedom of the foreign hostages.
The captives were brought to Basilan, after which Sobero was beheaded the next month to show to the government what would happen if their demands were not met.
The other victims were either ransomed or have escaped, but the terrorists kept on to Burnham and his wife, Gracia. Martin Burnham was killed during a rescue operation in Zamboanga del Norte province in June 2002. His wife was also shot, but survived and later wrote a book, in which she identified most of their captors, including Salih.
The US State Department has offered a $5 million in reward for information leading to the arrest of its Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani, his aide Abu Solaiman and two others.
They were reported to have fled to Sabah, Malaysia to escape a massive military operation in the southern Philippines.
