Zamboanga, April 05: Gunmen wearing police uniforms kidnapped an elderly Swiss-born man from his home in the restive southern Philippines where he had lived for decades, authorities said on Monday.
While no-one immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction of Charles Reith, 72, Muslim militants and bandits have conducted many kidnappings of foreigners in the area over the past decade.
The local military and police said at least eight gunmen raided Reith’s beachside home on the outskirts of Zamboanga, a major port city in the south, on Sunday night.
“The raiders, disguised as policemen, arrived on several speed boats and abducted Reith,” Colonel Santiago Baluyot, commander of the Army’s anti-terrorist task force in Zamboanga, told reporters.
“We launched a pursuit operation but it was too dark to track down the raiders.”
Baluyot said Reith’s friend Karl Reichling, a German national, was with him when the abduction occurred.
The gunmen also attempted to take Reichling but he was able to fend them off, according to Baluyot.
Baluyot and local police said Reith had been living in the southern Philippines for about 40 years and was a naturalised Filipino.
Reith was a well-respected member of the local community, according to Erico Fabian, a Zamboanga representative in the national Parliament who said he was a close friend of the abducted man.
“Mr Reith is a civic-minded person and a permanent fixture in business circles here,” Fabian told reporters.
“I personally condemn this abduction because this guy is old and has done no wrong, only good, to the city.”
The al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group is one of the most infamous to operate in Zamboanga and other parts of the southern Philippines’ Mindanao region.
Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded an American hostage in 2001, and have reaped major ransom bonanzas for kidnapping other foreigners as well as locals.
Most recently, Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded a local businessman on Mindanao’s Basilan island in December last year after not receiving a ransom payment they had demanded.
However, there are many other groups in Mindanao who similarly kidnap people assumed to have money in the hope of securing ransom payments.
–Agencies