AFP FILE PHOTO
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines—Police in Sulu have confirmed that German nationals Dr. Stefan Victor Okonek and Henrite Dielen were now in the hands of an Abu Sayyaf unit in Indanan town.
Senior Superintendent Abraham Orbita, Sulu provincial police chief, made the confirmation in a telephone interview with the Inquirer on Wednesday after a photo of the Germans in the company of Filipino gunmen surfaced on Facebook.
“Yes, it’s confirmed that they are being held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf Group and all we can do now is to locate and monitor their movements,” Orbita said.
He said the group holding Okonek, 74, and Dielen, 42, was headed by one Alhabshi Misaya in Indanan.
In the undated photo taken in an undetermined location, the Germans are shown holding the German flag. They are flanked by about a dozen Abu Sayyaf gunmen wearing scarves.
It was not clear who took the photo, in which Dielen is seen clad in a purple long-sleeved shirt and Okonek in a gray shirt.
Orbita said the photo that the authorities had also come across was posted on the Facebook account of one Ayman Mat. A check by the Inquirer showed that particular Facebook user was based in Kuwait.
“That photo is one of the several pictures and videos we know are being spread around,” Orbita said.
He said the authorities believed that the Abu Sayyaf had spread the video and the photos.
While Orbita confirmed that the photo posted on Facebook was authentic and that the Abu Sayyaf was holding the couple, a military official said he was not aware of it.
Major General Martin Pinto, commander of the 2nd Marine Brigade in Sulu, said, “As far as (the military was) concerned, we don’t have any information on that.”
Pinto said the Inquirer might be able to “extract data” from the police’s Anti-Kidnapping Group.
Chief Superintendent Noel delos Reyes, chief of the police in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said the surfacing of the video and the photos could be an effort by the Abu Sayyaf at cashing in on the German nationals.
But he said the Anti-Kidnapping Group would be the most appropriate unit to confirm if the Germans were indeed in Sulu.
Okonek and Dielen were conducting scientific research off Palawan when they disappeared in April.
Even then, there were already suspicions that they had been abducted and that the Abu Sayyaf was behind their disappearance.
The first to disclose the presence of the Germans in Sulu was peace advocate Octavio Dinampo in May.
Dinampo, also a former Abu Sayyaf captive, said the Abu Sayyaf faction under Radulan Sahiron was holding the two foreigners.
“These two Germans were brought to Patikul by Ambrin Absara and Muammar Askali on a (speedboat) owned by Idang Susukan,” Dinampo said, citing his sources in the area.
Dinampo also said that the two Germans were being kept with European birdwatchers Lorenzo Vinciguerra and Ewold Horn.
Last month, freed Abu Sayyaf captive Remigio Linggayan said he had spent some time with Okonek, Dielen, Horn and Vinciguerra while in captivity in Sulu.