Police arrest suspect in Dos Palmas kidnapping

After almost 10 years in hiding, another suspect in the 2001 abduction of local and foreign tourists from a posh resort in Palawan was arrested in Tawi-Tawi province, a police official said. In a news release last Wednesday, Philippine National Police spokesman Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr. said authorities arrested Arabi Sali, a.k.a. “Amil Sali" in the town of Bongao last Monday. “The long arm of the law has finally caught up with a suspected member of the dreaded terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) after hiding for nearly ten years," Cruz said. Sali is one of the suspects in the Dos Palmas Resort kidnapping incident on May 27, 2001. According to Cruz, Sali was arrested by virtue of an arrest warrant for the crime of kidnapping with serious illegal detention. The suspect was also allegedly involved in a series of kidnapping in Sipadan Island in Malaysia and in Palau, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean. “[Sali] is now detained at Bongao municipal police station while awaiting order for his departure to Zamboanga City for subsequent turn-over to the court concerned in Pasig Regional Trial Court under Hon. Judge Toribio Ilao," the police news release said. It said the Dos Palmas Resort kidnapping caught international attention when suspected members of the ASG abducted three Americans and 17 Filipino tourists in Palawan. One of the kidnapped victims was American missionary Gracia Burnham who survived the jungle captivity. Unfortunately, her husband Martin was killed in the military rescue in 2002. The third American, Guillermo Sobero was beheaded by the bandits in Basilan province in Mindanao, the police statement said. In February last year, the Philippine Navy reported the arrest in Manila of another suspect in the Dos Palmas kidnapping, Jumadail Arad. Arad, known by the aliases Abu Hurayra and Asim Mangkabong Absar, was reportedly the speedboat operator during the daring kidnapping in Palawan in 2001. — LBG, GMANews.TV