ZAMBOANGA CITY (MindaNews / 28 Jan) – The police has tagged members of a kidnap-for-ransom-group with ties to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) as the ones behind the abduction of a Korean businessman on Saturday in Zamboanga Sibugay.
Senior Supt. Robert Roy Bahian, Zamboanga Sibugay police director, said that the identities of the suspects were established with the assistance of the companions of the victim who were able to escape.
The kidnapping victim was identified as 73-year-old Hong Nwi Seong (not Noui Hong Sung as earlier reported), who was abducted around 9:30 p.m. in Barangay Surabay, R.T. Lim town.
Bahian said those who managed to escape were Hong’s son, Gobui, and Park Gisuk.
The two were able to identify three of the suspects through photographs shown to them in the course of the investigation, Bahian said.
Two of the suspects were identified as Abral Abdulsalam of Barangay Mamagon, Naga, Zamboanga Sibugay, and Munib Enriques of Barangay Tenan, Ipil of the same province.
Bahian the third suspect is a member of the Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf Group.
He said that Abdulsalam is the younger brother of Waning Abdulsalam, the leader of a kidnap group based in Zamboanga Sibugay.
Enriques, on the other hand, is a cousin of Ayub Enriques. Both are members of the Abdulsalam group.
Ayub was arrested January 16 at his residence in Barangay Tenan, Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay. He has two standing warrants of arrest for the crime of murder.
Bahian said that Hong was abducted two days after he arrived in in R.T. Lim town to visit as well as to check on the small-scale mining business of his son.
He said that prior to Hong’s abduction, the victim – together with his wife Sik Young Lee, son Gobui, Park, and another Korean national Jong Beoum Kim – took their dinner at the residence of Bert Bayona, the business partner of his son.
After the dinner, Bahian said the Hong family and their two Korean national companions went home to their rented house in Barangay Surabay, R.T. Lim. The house is owned by Suzette Rubio Espinosa of the same place.
He said that suddenly a mini-van with gunmen aboard arrived and barged in while the Koreans were about to go to sleep.
The gunmen forcibly took Hong, his son Gobui, and Park, but the two managed to escape.
Bahian said the mini-van of the suspects was found in Sitio Limono, Barangay Roxas, R.T. Lim town, where it was burned by the suspects.
Bahian said they have taken Hong’s wife, his son, and Park and Jong to safer place and provided them security escorts.