September 6, 2001, Filipino Reporter, Abu Sayyaf 'paid' for escape, by De La Cruz, Arlyn,

September 6, 2001, Filipino Reporter, Abu Sayyaf 'paid' for escape, by  De La Cruz, Arlyn,

"We paid so that we could escape."

This is what Abu Sayyaf spokesperson Abu Sabaya told this reporter in a phone call the other day.

"It's true we just walked out of the place, but shots were fired too," Sabaya said.

Sabaya, who initiated the call, answered questions about the allegations of Lamitan, Basilan parish priest Cirilo Nacorda that some military officials had connived with the Abu Sayyaf.

"Nacorda's version is just 80-percent true," Sabaya said.

He said that, during a lull in the fighting on the afternoon of June 2. the group's leader, Khaddafy Janjalani, spoke to a local government official using a satellite phone. The official then sent a male emissary to talk to the Abu Sayyaf.

At the Lamitan hearings conducted by the House defense committee last weekend, Nacorda and some local residents testified that local government officials in the province were protecting the Abu Sayyaf. Basilan Gov. Wahab Akbar was one of those mentioned by some of the witnesses.

Sabaya quoted Janjalani as telling the official in Filipino: "It would be a waste if those foreigners die."

Janjalani explained to the local official how much money would go to waste if the foreign hostages got hurt in the cross fire. Sabaya said it did not take them long to convince the local official.

The local official assured them: "Makakaalpas kayo (You can escape)."

But Sabaya said the official told them through his emissary that their group would have to give a certain amount to some military officials. The official did not name the military officials, however.

Earlier that day, Sabaya said, another Abu Sayyaf leader, Abu Soliman, was on the satellite phone negotiating the ransom. But at that point the ransom money had not yet arrived. (Soliman was later killed in an encounter.)

The black attach case which witnesses reported seeing in the hands of a military official was actually taken from one of the rooms in the hospital, Sabaya said. The cash from the hospital vault was then placed inside the case and given to the emissary.

To date, no ex-hostage or other witnesses of the hospital siege have said anything about the bandits stealing cash from the hospital, although some have recalled that the Abu Sayyaf stole valuables from both the church and the adjoining hospital.