The deadline passed at 3 p.m. on Sunday, February 26, 2017. Roughly half an hour later, according to Philippine officials, Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded Jurgen Kantner, a 70-year-old German sailor they had held since the previous November. The group had demanded a ransom of 30 million pesos, about $600,000.
A video released on Monday by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites, appears to show it. Kantner sits in a grassy clearing and says “Now he kill me.” A masked militant then kills him with a curved knife. The clip runs one minute and 43 seconds.
Kidnapped off Sabah
The militants said they seized Kantner on November 6, 2016, off Sabah, in Malaysia. His partner, Sabine Merz, was killed in the same attack. Villagers later found a dead woman aboard a yacht flying a German flag off Laparan Island in Sulu province, the Philippine military said. Authorities said she had been shot on the boat.
Kantner and Merz had been through this before. Somali pirates took them hostage in 2008, and both were later freed. The Express put that captivity at 58 days in the Gulf of Aden.
On February 14, a video posted on social media showed four masked gunmen standing over Kantner, one of them aiming what looked like a sickle at him. They set a deadline and threatened to behead him if the German government did not pay. In that clip Kantner appealed to the German embassy for help.
Reaction
An intelligence report seen by The Associated Press said the militant Moammar Askali wanted Kantner killed as announced, while others in the group preferred to wait for a ransom payment. A police source in the Philippines named Askali, also known as Abu Rami, as the leader of the group that carried out the killing in Indanan, Sulu.
Jesus Dureza, President Rodrigo Duterte’s adviser on peace talks, called it a barbaric beheading. “We all tried our best. But to no avail,” he said. The military confirmed that Kantner had been “mercilessly and inhumanly murdered.” Spokesman Col. Edgard Arevalo said troops had lost “some of our best men” in operations over the preceding days and nights.
In Berlin, spokesman Steffen Seibert relayed a statement from Chancellor Angela Merkel, who condemned “this abominable act, which shows once again how inhumane and without conscience these terrorists act.” A foreign ministry spokesman, Martin Schaefer, declined to say whether the kidnappers had made a ransom demand, citing government policy and saying that “public comment never helps in finding a solution.”
A pattern of hostage-taking
Abu Sayyaf, blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the United States and the Philippines, was holding more than 20 foreign and local hostages in jungle camps in the south at the time. It had beheaded two Canadians, Robert Hall and John Ridsdel, in 2016 after ransom deadlines lapsed. A Norwegian, Kjartan Sekkingstad, was freed after a ransom was paid.
Duterte ordered troops to destroy the group, calling its ransom kidnappings an embarrassment. Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia have worked to tighten security along their busy sea border, yet kidnappings of passing crews by Abu Sayyaf and allied gunmen have continued.
Sources
- German sailor BEHEADED by Isis-supporting group ransom not met
- Philippine militants release video of German's beheading
- Philippines: German kidnap victim reportedly beheaded
