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Boy kidnapped in Philippines, ransom suspected

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-26 13:24

COTABATO, Philippines: Gunmen seized a 4-year-old boy on his way home from school in the southern Philippines, authorities said Friday, blaming a notorious kidnapping-for-ransom gang allegedly in league with local officials.

Police and soldiers arrested one suspect — a former radio DJ — hours after the four gunmen in a car snatched the son of a Chinese-Filipino trader in Cotabato city on Thursday, Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane said.

The three other suspects, believed to be holding the boy in a village near Cotabato, reportedly are employees of the transportation department of a Muslim autonomous region in the southern Philippines, Dangane said.

The boy was suffering from fever and asthma, he said.

Cotabato Mayor Muslimin Sema suspected that the kidnapping, the fourth in the region since May, was the work of a group of former Muslim rebels and local gunmen known as the Pentagon gang. The group has been blamed for several abductions in recent years in the central part of southern Mindanao island, where Muslim rebels maintain strongholds.

The rebels have been fighting for Muslim self-rule in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation's south for decades.

Sema said the series of ransom kidnappings could be linked to next year's national elections as candidates may be looking for ways to fund their campaigns. Kidnappings and bank robberies usually rise ahead of elections.

Wealthy traders of Chinese descent and their families are often targets of kidnappings.

The 70-year-old sister of a Chinese-Filipino hotel owner in the city was released from seven days of captivity earlier this month after her family paid a ransom. Her brother and his 10-year-old daughter were also held in February for four days.

Last month, Philippine troops and Muslim rebels worked together in a brief, rare alliance to force the kidnappers to abandon a Chinese tourist held for five days.

The Abu Sayyaf, a smaller but more violent al-Qaida-linked group, also has carried out kidnappings in the southern Philippines, and has been holding an Italian Red Cross worker since January.