GENERAL SANTOS CITY - Police have arrested at least five suspected members of the extremist Abu Sayyaf group who were tagged in the 1995 kidnapping of 14 people in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato.
Suspects Martin Baay alias Martin Salam, Fernando Lingason, Herman Blogo, Nicolas Minso and a certain Ma-siok were separately arrested in their hideouts in the hinterlands around Lake Sebu last week.
The five suspects, presented to the media yesterday by Chief Superintendent Manuel Raval, Region 12 police director, were arrested by virtue of an arrest warrant issued by Surallah Municipal Trial Court Judge Manuel Sollesta for the kidnapping of members of the Lacap and San Andres families on Dec. 27, 1995.
According to police records, the suspects, who belonged to an armed group allegedly headed by former Mindanao State University professor Amir Madrahata Haipe, succeeded in getting a P1-million ransom and released their 14 captives on Dec. 31, 1995.
Haipe's group disbanded after most of its members were killed in an encounter with soldiers in Lake Sebu in 1996.