Abu Sayyaf extremists today freed a Norwegian man kidnapped a year ago in the southern Philippines along with two Canadians who were later beheaded and a Filipino woman who has been released by the ransom-seeking militants, officials said.
Kjartan Sekkingstad was freed in Patikul town in Sulu province and was eventually secured by rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which has a signed a peace deal with the government and helped negotiate his release, officials said.
Sekkingstad, held in jungle captivity since being kidnapped last September, was to stay overnight at the house of Moro National Liberation Front chairman Nur Misuari in Sulu and then meet with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte tomorrow, said Jesus Dureza, who advises Duterte on peace talks with insurgent groups.
Dureza said that when he spoke on the phone with Sekkingstad, the Norwegian expressed his gratitude to Duterte. A plan to fly Sekkingstad out of Sulu, a jungle-clad Muslim region about 950 kilometers south of Manila, was canceled today because of bad weather, Dureza said.
It was not immediately clear whether Sekkingstad had been ransomed off. Duterte suggested in a news conference last month that 50 million pesos (USD 1 million) had been paid to the militants, but that they continued to hold on to him.
The military said today that relentless assaults forced the extremists to release the hostage.
"Under the intense pressure of focused military operations, the terrorist kidnap-for-ransom Abu Sayyaf group was constrained to release Sekkingstad as holding him under custody slows down their continues movement," military spokesman Colonel Edgard Arevalo said.
Military chief General Ricardo Visaya warned the militants to release their other captives, including a Dutch birdwatcher and Indonesian and Malaysian tugboat crewmen, "or suffer annihilation."
Sekkingstad was kidnapped September 21, 2015, with Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall and Hall's Filipino girlfriend, Marites Flor, from a marina on southern Samal Island, sparking a massive land and sea search by Philippine forces.
The Abu Sayyaf demanded a huge ransom for the release of the foreigners and released videos in which they threatened the captives in a lush jungle clearing where they displayed Islamic State group-style black flags.
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