Malaysian escapes from his abductors (updated)

Malaysian kidnap victim tells how he escaped

PETALING JAYA: Chong Wei Jie, the 25-year-old Malaysian who was kidnapped in Lahad Datu last year, managed to escape when his abductors were busy.

"According to Wei Jin, he was able to escape when his shackles loosened up and he fled until he came to the village of Pasil in Indanan (in Jolo island, southern Philippines)," said Sulu provincial police chief Abraham Orbita, according to news reports.

Orbita said Wei Jie told his officer that he had escaped three days earlier.

"The victim appeared to be haggard and tired when he was recovered by the police forces on patrol," said Jose Joriel Cenabre, commander of the Task Force Sulu.

The former hostage was weak and skinny, sported long hair and had grown a moustache.

Wei Jie also told the police that his 33-year-old cousin Chong Wei Fei died in captivity on April 8.

"He said he saw his cousin's body shaking and then stop breathing," Orbito said.

The former hostage was weak and skinny, sported long hair and had grown a moustache.

Cenabre said that Jie would and will be flown out from Sulu some time Tuesday and taken to the Malaysian Embassy in Manila.

The Chong cousins, who are from Negri Sembilan, were abducted by Filipino gunmen on Nov 13 last year at an oil palm plantation farm in Lahad Datu, Sabah and brought to Jolo in southern Philippines.

Orbita said that the Chongs' families were unable to pay a ransom of US$230,000 (RM746,000) that later was lowered to US$46,000 (RM150,000).

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ZAMBOANGA CITY - A Sabahan kidnapped in Lahad Datu in Sabah last year escaped from his abductors in Indanan, Sulu, on Tuesday morning, police said.

Senior Superintendent Jose Bayani Gucela, deputy director of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations in Western Mindanao, said SPO4 Baltazar Sawabi claimed he saw the victim, Chong Wei Jie, walking on the highway in the village of Pasil at around 7 a.m. and asked him if he needed help.

Tung then introduced himself as one of two oil palm plantation workers who were abducted in Lahad Datu on Nov. 13 last year.

Col. Jose Johriel Cenabre, commander of the Joint Task Force Sulu, said Tung claimed that the other victim, his cousin, Fei, died of illness while in captivity.

“We still don’t have the complete details of how they were abducted and what kind of illness afflicted his cousin,” Cenabre said.

Gucela said Tung was taken to the Sulu Provincial Hospital for a medical check up. He was to be transferred later to Zamboanga City for a debriefing.

Kidnappers in Sulu are still holding European bird watchers Lorenzo Vinciguerra and Ewold Horn, Jordanian journalist Baker Atyani, the sisters Linda and Nadjoua Bansil, coffee shop owner Reynato Yanga, Japanese treasure hunter Mamaito Katayama and Casilda Villarasa, wife of a Philippine Marine.