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.