KOTA KINABALU, April 10 – The group involved in last Wednesday’s abduction of two foreign nationals from a resort in Semporna have made their ransom demand.
Home Minister Zahid Hamidi said that the kidnappers are asking for RM36.4 million.
“We have received a (ransom) note.The kidnappers have asked for 500mil pesos or RM36.4mil as ransom, ” he told reporters here.
Zahid said his Ministry has sent a team – the police and negotiators – to “discuss” the ransom.
He said the “kidnapper or kidnappers” had appointed a ”so-called middle person” to negotiate a possible reduction in the ransom.
Zahid also said that the ransom demand was only for the Chinese national. No ransom demand was made for the Filipino resort worker.
The ransom demand comes nine days after seven armed men in masks stormed Singamata Reef Resort at 10.30pm and abducted 29-year- old Gao Hua Yuan from Shanghai and 40-year-old Marcy Darawan, a Filipina.
The gunmen are believed to be linked to the Abu Sayyaf militant group in southern Philippines.
Yesterday Sabah Police Chief Hamza Taib said the kidnappers had made “more than one call” but declined to say who they contacted and whether a ransom demand was made.
The latest security breach right under the noses of the Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) has left Sabahans furious.
It is not the first time such as incident had occured. Last November a Taiwanese was shot dead while holidaying in Pom Pom Island and his wife abducted. She was rescued 36 days later by the Philippines security after an undisclosed ransom was paid.
Cases of kidnap, cross-border crimes and piracy have plagued Sabah since 1979, according to Kalabakan MP Ghafur Salleh.
“I can’t even read out the list of security breaches since then as it is too long,” he told parliament recently.
He said Putrajaya had only awakened to this reality last February following the Sulu invasion.
Abdul Ghapur alongwith other Sabah MPs agreed that illegal immigrants were the root cause of security issues, be it an incursion or crimes along Sabah’s 1,400km long east coastline.
– FREE MALAYSIA TODAY
