Abu Sayyaf militants kill German sailor, kidnap another in southern Philippines
Islamic militants who specialise in kidnappings-for-ransom have reported killing a German sailor and abducting her elderly male companion from their yacht in waters off the southern Philippines, the military said on Monday.
My boat is my life and I don’t want to lose her, nothing more. I don’t care about pirates and governments
Tan said the military had recovered the couple’s yacht, and the body of a naked white woman who had been shot was aboard.
He said the military had listened to an audio recording of a known Abu Sayyaf leader claiming responsibility for the raid on the yacht, and the abducted German man also spoke on the phone call.
The abducted man identified himself as Jurgen Kantner, aged 70, and his companion as Sabine, according to Tan. It appeared the victims were the same as those abducted by Somali pirates off the Gulf of Aden and held hostage for 52 days in 2008.
AFP interviewed Kantner and his wife, Sabine Merz, in 2009 about their ordeal when they returned to Somalia to retrieve their boat, named the Rockall. Despite being subjected to a mock execution during his ordeal, Kantner said the threat of kidnapping would never stop him from sailing.
“My boat is my life and I don’t want to lose her, nothing more. I don’t care about pirates and governments,” Kantner said in the 2009 interview from Berbera, the main port in Somaliland.