'Dead' Abu Sayyaf leader seen on Basilan

From inq7.net -

Defense chief, US general
assure Abu Sabaya is dead
Posted:3:09 AM (Manila Time) | Jun. 25, 2002

By Julie S. Alipala and Martin P. Marfil
Inquirer News Service

AS DOUBTS spread – in Congress and in the media, including the Internet – on the reported death of Abu Sayyaf spokesperson Abu Sabaya, Philippine and American officials expressed conviction that the erstwhile high-profile bandit leader was killed in a clash with government troops Friday.

"I am convinced of Abu Sabaya's demise," Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes Reyes said in a carefully worded statement.

"I'll bet my month's paycheck on that," Brigadier General Donald Wurster, the commander of American forces taking part in the Philippine-US "Balikatan" military exercises, told reporters in Zamboanga City.

Commodore Ernesto de Leon, head of the Task Force Kingfisher naval team searching for Sabaya's body, challenged detractors to prove that Sabaya was still alive.

"Bring him out," De Leon said. "I challenge the Abu Sayyaf Group to prove" the military wrong.

The Straits Times of Singapore reported Monday that Sabaya had allegedly been sighted in Maluso town in the island province of Basilan, the former stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, and was "expected to give a statement in coming days."

Reyes said: "I have no reason to doubt the findings of our field units that established the fate of Abu Sabaya and his two other cohorts."

"I'm confident in the capability of our men and the way they did the operation," De Leon said, adding: "I challenge the Abu Sayyaf to prove us otherwise. They may develop an impostor, but we are sure we got Sabaya dead!"

"Let's wait for Neptune to release Sabaya," he also said, in reference to the Greek god of the sea, in which the military says Sabaya fell Friday after being hit in the body in a firefight with Philippine naval soldiers off Sibuco town in Zamboanga del Norte province.

Major General Ernesto Carolina, chief of the Southern Command, presented as additional proof the testimony of Abbas Samson, the village head of Matinbog in Sibuco, who was arrested last week for allegedly harboring Sabaya and his men.

"The barangay (village) captain who is now with us and who is facing charges testified that Sabaya waited in his house for the pumpboat, and he saw Sabaya board the pumpboat last June 21," Carolina said.

Aside from Abbas' testimony, the military is banking on the statements of the four captured bandits and the reports made by the Special Warfare Group specialists and Marines who took part in the encounter.

These "corroborate that Sabaya was in that pumpboat," Carolina said.

House of Representatives Minority Floor Leader Carlos Padilla was quoted by radio dzBB as saying the military should find his body before declaring him dead.

Padilla said the videotaped testimonies of the captured Abu Sayyaf members were not enough to rule out rumors that he survived Friday's encounter with the military in Sibuco.

Senator Aquilino Pimentel, floor leader of the opposition's "new majority" bloc in the Senate, sought assurance that Sabaya was dead.

In a separate interview, the spokesperson of the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Eid Kabalu, was also skeptical of Sabaya's death. "Until the body is found, it is doubtful that he is dead," he told dzBB radio.

INQ7.net received several e-mail messages from readers expressing doubt on Sabaya's death. One of them said: "Is Abu Sabaya really dead? How come they were able to retrieve the personal effects of this guy like driver's license, pair of glasses, etc., but not his body? As long as his body is missing I doubt that they have killed this man."

Another declared: "Don't believe it till you see the body. The military are not entitled to the handsome $$$ reward. But Sabaya could reward them very well indeed for making it appear that he's dead so that he can assume a new identity with all the millions that he has racked up through his activities, which are rumored to have been helped by some members of the military."

In Malacañang, acting Press Secretary Silvestre Afable said grudgingly admitted that Sabaya, who used to taunt Philippine and US troops in media interviews, continued to mock the authorities even from beyond the grave. "That's the irony of it," he said.

But in Zamboanga City, Wurster outlined the limits of American help in the search. "If we have any intelligence indication that Sabaya had survived, which we do not, then I would, of course, pass that immediately," he said. "In the recovery efforts, our SEALs and your soldiers are working together."

But he said the search would not be on the same scale as that for the US Army Chinook helicopter that crashed in February, killing 10 American soldiers.

"I don't think it's worth it to recover bodies of the criminals that we know are dead," Wurster said in an interview.

He said technical support in the form of sharing weather data would continue. "All weather information would be passed to them (the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or AFP). But we would not be bringing expensive ships to search the sea bottom for casualties," he said.

According to De Leon, the search area is 46 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide. "This is an intensive search for the peace of mind of our people," he said.

He said the AFP was using a "total approach" in the search of Sabaya and two other bandits presumed to have drowned.

"The method of search is sectoral where we involve the Navy patrol boats, Navy mother ship and riverine boats," De Leon said.

He said the following units were involved in the search: four patrol boats, one ship, one Navy helicopter, two Air Force helicopters, six boats of the Philippine Army, particularly the Riverine Battalion, plus one company of Marines.

Reyes said the Department of National Defense and the AFP had nothing to gain from made-up stories. "The DND-AFP will be the very last to resort to fabricated scenarios that could cloud the very positive results we have achieved so far," he said.

Reyes maintained that based on verbal and visual accounts of the captured Abu Sayyaf bandits and government field units, "the chain of circumstances point to no other conclusion except that the three who fell overboard perished at sea."

"Their chances of survival under the conditions that prevail in the area are deemed minimal even by ordinary folks familiar with those conditions. These facts are easily verifiable," he added.

Sabaya, according to Reyes, sustained two gunshot wounds based on a Navy sniper's account.

"Unfortunately, the three (bandits) ended up in the sea. The search and recovery efforts ... have not yet yielded their bodies. Although it is now a matter of time before we produce biological evidence of certain death, I am convinced of Abu Sabaya's demise," Reyes said.

"Any doubts to the contrary, while understandable, border on conjecture and merely fuel speculations that undermine the character of our soldiers and weaken their resolve in the ongoing campaign against terrorism," he added.

Former president Fidel Ramos, a former AFP chief of staff and defense secretary, said he believed Sabaya was indeed dead. "I know the area quite well and it is very deep. There are also predators, like sharks. He could not have survived if he fell into the water," Ramos told reporters at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

The Abu Sayyaf bandit who was captured on June 11 – four days after the military encounter that left hostages Martin Burnham and Edibora Yap dead and caused Sabaya and his men to flee – said Monday the four men fished out of the waters off Sibuco town were his comrades.

Bashier Ordonez, alias Leuterio Abumikad, confirmed that the four who survived Friday's sea battle were present during the June 7 encounter that led to the rescue of Gracia Burnham.

Ordonez is presently undergoing medical treatment at the Camp Navarro hospital in the Southern Commad headquarters, after his left foot was amputated because of gangrene.
With reports from Carlito Pablo, Norman Bordadora, INQ7.net, and Inquirer wires
©2002 www.inq7.net all rights reserved

Search on for Sabaya's
'floating body'
Posted:12:55 PM (Manila Time) | Jun. 25, 2002

By Fe Zamora
INQ7.net

ZAMBOANGA City – The search for the body of Abu Sabaya stepped up Tuesday as the operations reached its fifth day.

"This is a critical day. Our experience showed that in cases like this, the body always surfaces on the fifth day," Southern Command chief Major General Ernesto Carolina told newsmen.

Carolina said Task Force Kingfisher, the naval team tasked to recover Sabaya's corpse and two other members of the bandit group believed submerged in the waters of Sibuco, is focusing on "looking for a floating body."

'The body could have floated up, we just didn't see it (Baka naman nag-float na kasi iyan, hindi lang namin nakita)," he said.

Navy troops scouring the Sibuco seas got a boost from the United States after Brigadier General Donald Wurster, US troops commander in the Balikatan 02-1 war exercises, said they would assist in the recovery of Sabaya's body.
©2002 www.inq7.net all rights reserved

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