Freed hostage: Abus rejoiced as Canadians were beheaded

Marites Flor sheds tears as she recounts her suffering in the hands of Abu Sayyaf group.

Manila — Abu Sayyaf extremists rejoiced as they watched two Canadians being beheaded in the jungles of the southern Philippines, said a still-shocked Filipino hostage who was freed yesterday.

Marites Flor tearfully recalled to reporters the harrowing moment when Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall were handcuffed and led away to a nearby jungle clearing to be separately decapitated in April and early this month by the ransom-seeking militants.

She said that Hall, who was killed early last week, was her fiancee. Ridsdel was beheaded by the militants in April.

“It’s so painful because I saw them moments before they got beheaded,” Flor told reporters in southern Davao City, where she was flown to meet President-elect Rodrigo Duterte after her release in nearby Sulu province.

“They were watching it and they were happy,” she said of the militants, adding that she did not witness the killings.

Flor was abducted with Hall, Ridsdel and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad from a yacht resort on southern Samal island in September last year and taken to the jungles of the predominantly Muslim island province of Sulu. The militants killed the two Canadians after ransom deadlines lapsed.

The captives were among some two dozen people held by the Abu Sayyaf this year.

Duterte cut short his speech in a nationally televised police ceremony when officials arrived and brought the 38-year-old Flor, who appeared still distraught, to the stage where he spoke. Duterte tried to console her and quietly asked a few questions.

Shortly before facing Flor, Duterte asked the Abu Sayyaf militants to stop ransom kidnappings, which he said have given the country “a very bad image.”

He warned people against joining the Abu Sayyaf, suggesting a major offensive was forthcoming. “There will be, I said, a reckoning one of these days,” he said.