Fishing boat owner abducted

Safe at home: The fishing trawler belonging to Ruslan docking at the Semporna Jetty.

KOTA KINABALU: Cross-border kidnap-for-ransom gunmen hit twice within 15 minutes late on Tuesday in Sabah’s high-security Semporna and Lahad Datu waters, taking with them the owner of a fishing boat and robbing dozens of crewmen on two trawlers.

The kidnapping and two robbe­ries deep in Malaysian waters came hardly 24 hours after two of the Abu Sayyaf-linked Muktadil bro­thers – Nelson @ Nikson and Braun @ Brown – who were notorious for cross-border abductions – were killed in Jolo Island early Tuesday.

Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Abdul Rashid Harun said six Suluk-speaking gunmen were all dressed in civilian clothes except for one who wore military fatigue and armed with semi-automatic M16 and M14 rifles as well as a pistol. They raided a fishing trawler before grabbing the owner, 39-year-old Malay­sian Ruslan Nasir Sarapin, a local Suluk.

Police said they then robbed the remaining 26 crew members (some of whom were in the sea to monitor their fishing nets) during the 9.50pm incident in the waters off Pulau Gaya in Semporna.

The boat owner was the only one with a Malaysian identity card while the crew members, aged between 18 and 60, were holding Surat Lepa-Lepa (a document given by native chiefs) and one was in possession of an immigration pass for Filipino refugees.

The Suluk-speaking gunmen ransacked the boat and took all the crewmen’s handphones, documents and other belongings before speeding off in a 150HP boat towards neighbouring Lahad Datu.

They then headed to Tungku waters, close to the southern Philip­­pines, and robbed 19 people on another trawler.

The gunmen grabbed a speedboat engine, rice, cooking oil, clothes, handphones, a walkie-talkie and RM300 from the crew before fleeing into the international waters in the Tawi-Tawi chain of islands at about 10.05pm.

Kidnappers' target: The fishing trawler that was robbed in waters off Lahad DAtu berthing at port.

“No shots were fired,” Abdul Rashid told a press conference here.

He said the boats were operating illegally as both did not have permits to carry out fishing during the dusk-to-dawn curfew in place in the east coast of Sabah.

“They have yet to install the Automated Identification System that we asked all fishing boats to do two months ago,” he said.

The system enables the police to quickly identify vessels.

The second trawler belonged to a former kidnap victim from Kunak, Chan Sai Chuin.

The fish farm breeder was abducted on June 16, 2014. He was released on Dec 9 that year.

Abdul Rashid said according to some of the witnesses and based on their description of the criminals, the same group is believed to be behind the two latest incidents.

“In the latest kidnapping incident, the crew said they saw six people on board the speedboat and in the second case, the fishermen saw seven people on it,” he said.

“The illegal workers and their employers will face action under the law,” he said.

This was the sixth kidnapping case in the east coast waters this year, he added.

Abu Sayyaf gunmen are still holding 11 hostages – five Malaysians, three Indonesians and three Filipi­nos.