Abu leader gets 23 years in US prison

By AP (The Philippine Star) Updated December 19, 2010 

WASHINGTON – A senior member of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf was sentenced Friday to 23 years in a US prison over the kidnapping for ransom of tourists including four Americans, officials said

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With former hostages from the 1995 drama watching in a Washington courtroom, a judge handed down the punishment to Madhatta Haipe, a Filipino citizen, who was extradited to the US last year.

Haipe, a former professor in Islamic studies, had faced life in prison but received a lighter sentence after pleading guilty. Prosecutors said Haipe was second-in-command of the al-Qaeda-linked group at the time of the kidnapping.

“It was incredibly gratifying that so many of those victims were able to stand today in an American courtroom and watch the terrorist who held them hostage be sent to prison for his crimes,” federal prosecutor Ronald Machen said.

Haipe admitted organizing the kidnapping of 16 people – including six children – in December 1995 near remote waterfalls in Mindanao, with some of the adults tied up with rope.

The militants marched the hostages up a mountain after freeing four of them, who were told to retrieve ransom money and warned that those remaining would be killed if word got out about the kidnapping.

The kidnappers freed the others after receiving the ransom. The hostages included 11 Philippine citizens, four US citizens and one US permanent resident.

Abu Sayyaf, a US-designated terror organization, was founded in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network to fight for an independent Muslim state in the mainly Roman Catholic nation.

The militants often resort to kidnappings, mainly targeting foreigners and Christians, to raise funds from ransoms. Failure to pay ransoms often results in the beheading of the hostages.

In 2001 when gunmen kidnapped 20 people, including American missionary couple Gracia and Martin Burnham and Guillermo Sobero, from Dos Palmas resort. Sobero was beheaded while Martin was killed in a military rescue.

The group was also responsible for the bombing of a SuperFerry passenger ship in Manila Bay in 2004 that claimed more than 100 lives. It was the Philippines’ worst terrorist attack.

Nightmares

Bien-Elize Roque, who was 11 when she was kidnapped along with her parents, said the experience stole her childhood and left her with nightmares of men in camouflage and an obsession with locking doors and windows. “You had no right to force me to grow up,” she told Haipe.

Haipe, 48, evaded capture for more than a decade, mostly living in Malaysia as the owner of a string of small businesses and father after he said he left Abu Sayyaf in 1997. But prosecutor Gregg Maisel said, “The United States never forgot.”

Maisel showed a video the vacationers took shortly before the gunmen attacked them at the Traan-Kine Spring Resort at Lake Sebu, 640 miles southeast of Manila. They gathered on a lush green mountainside, the children squealing in delight as they splashed in water pooled beneath a waterfall.

Maisel said the kidnappers appeared suddenly, wearing fatigues, wielding guns and knives and shouting at the tourists, “Get down, get down!” Two men who did not immediately obey were hit with rifle butts, and some had their hands and necks tied with rope to prevent escape.

All were forced to march up the mountain, some still wearing bathing suits without shoes, and were shown a large semicircular knife that would be used to behead them if they did not comply. The defendant, who went by “Commander Haipe,” then questioned the hostages individually about their background and set a $38,000 ransom for one American family and $19,000 ransom for the release of the rest.

He then sent three women and a male driver to collect the money, rejecting their pleas to release the children. He threatened to kill their families if they did not comply or went to police.

One victim went by her initials V.L. when she spoke to the judge because she still lives in the Philippines and fears for her safety from Abu Sayyaf. She said she begged the kidnappers to release her two younger children, an 11-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter with asthma, even if they had to keep her 19-year-old daughter hostage.

“How can a mother forgive herself for choosing only two of her three children?” she said. But she was sent to collect ransom and says she still hears the wailing cries of her son begging to go with her as she walked away. “I am grateful that the long arm of the law finally got Mr. Haipe,” she said.

The kidnappers took one vacationer’s video camera and recorded themselves while they waited for the ransom money. The families huddled under tents of blue tarp while their smiling young male captors showed off weapons including rifles and a bazooka.

Roque’s mother, Helen, also was sent away to collect ransom. She said she desperately called family members, friends and co-workers and was able to borrow the $38,000 that Haipe demanded for her family. Maisel said only part of the money made it to the camp since interveners who delivered it apparently took a cut, but Haipe agreed to release the hostages anyway on the promise they would pay the rest later.

Haipe, wearing a gray striped prison jumpsuit, turned and addressed the victims as “friends” and said they were lucky because someone was standing for their justice. He said Muslims have been subject to tyranny, oppression and massacre in the Philippines without such justice, which is why he joined Abu Sayyaf.

He said he never agreed with Abu Sayyaf’s practice of kidnapping because he found it “morally wrong and tactically counterproductive,” and he eventually left the group over their violent tactics.

Haipe apologized to the victims and said he protected them from further injury, sexual assault and longer abductions that occurred in other Abu Sayyaf kidnappings.

“I am not implying that I deserve gratitude - no,” he said. He noted that he did not fight the charges after his capture in Malaysia in June 2006 and immediately admitted his crime when he was extradited to the United States last year. “I am here to accept responsibility,” he said.