Philippine police arrest suspects in American kidnapping

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MANILA, Philippines — Philippine police said Wednesday they have arrested three suspects in the kidnapping of an American in the country’s south and believe the victim, who was shot in the leg during the kidnapping, is still alive.

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Two suspects in the Oct. 17 kidnapping of 26-year-old Elliot Oneal Eastman in Sibuco town in Zamboanga del Norte province surrendered separately and pointed to a third suspect who was arrested in Sibuco, police officials said.

Police said three other suspects have been identified who may be holding Eastman, adding that other people may be involved. On Tuesday, criminal charges of kidnapping were opened against six suspects.

“We believe he is alive, so our operations are continuing,” regional police spokeswoman Lt. Col. Helen Galvez told The Associated Press by phone. “Our search will not stop until we find him.”

Galvez said, without going into detail, a door-to-door search was conducted in an unspecified area. She added that the suspects belonged to a criminal gang and not to any of the armed Muslim rebel groups blamed for a series of kidnappings for ransom in the southern Philippines over decades.

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The kidnappers were armed with M16 rifles and disguised themselves as police officers. One of them shot Eastman in the leg as he tried to escape, then dragged him into a motorboat and fled, according to the first police reports of the abduction obtained by the AP, citing a witness.

Two empty M16 ammunition casings and blood stains were seen by investigators in Sibuco, where Eastman lived for about five months before he was kidnapped, Galvez said.

Eastman, from Vermont, left the Philippines and recently returned to attend his Filipino wife’s graduation. Galvez said he had been posting videos on Facebook of his life in Sibuco, a remote and poor coastal town where he was spotted by the suspects.

“He was confident. He was the only foreigner there,” Galvez said.

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While authorities said the kidnapping for ransom was an isolated incident in a relatively peaceful region, it was a reminder of the security problems that have long plagued the southern Philippines, home to a Muslim minority in a predominantly Roman Catholic country.

The southern third of the Philippines has rich resources but has long been plagued by extreme poverty and many insurgents and criminals.

A 2014 peace deal between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest of several Muslim separatist groups, greatly eased widespread fighting in the south. Relentless military offensives over the years have weakened smaller armed groups such as the brutal Abu Sayyaf group, significantly reducing the number of kidnappings, bombings and other attacks.

The Abu Sayyaf group attacked American and other Western tourists and religious missionaries, most of whom were released after paying a ransom. Several people were killed, including American Guillermo Sobero, who was beheaded in the island province of Basilan, and American missionary Martin Burnham, who was killed when Philippine army forces tried to rescue him and his wife Gracia Burnham in 2002. in the rainforest of Sirawai town near Sibuko.

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