27 February 2017•Update: 27 February 2017
By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
A militant group in the Philippines’ troubled south released a video Monday apparently showing the beheading of an elderly German hostage.
The release of the video, which was uploaded onto the SITE Intelligence website and circulated online, comes after the Abu Sayyaf’s deadline for a 30 million Philippine pesos ($600,000) ransom passed.
It shows a masked man beheading Juergen Gustav Kantner, 70, with a knife.
Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza condemned the violence in the southern island province of Sulu in a post on his Facebook page.
“We grieve as we strongly condemn the barbaric beheading of yet another kidnap victim, German Juergen Gustav Kantner in Sulu,” he wrote.
“Up to the last moment, many sectors, including the Armed Forces of the Philippines exhausted all efforts to save his life. We all tried our best. But to no avail."
Military officials from Joint Task Force Sulu had earlier said they were still verifying reports of the beheading while continuing their search and rescue operations for Kantner and other hostages.
"We do not want to jump into conclusion, until we find and see the body," Col. Edgard Arevalo, army public affairs office chief, told reporters Monday. "While there is no body to prove the reports, the military will continue to hope that Kantner is alive."
Kantner and his partner Sabine Merz were in a yacht off the Sulu archipelago between Malaysia and the main Philippine islands when they were abducted on Nov. 5. Merz was killed during the kidnapping.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf -- armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles -- has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortions in a self-determined fight for an independent province in the Philippines.
The Daesh-affiliated group is notorious for beheading victims after ransoms have failed to be paid for their release.
Police and military reports released in the Philippines in October revealed that the group made around 353 million pesos ($7.3 million) from kidnap-for-ransom activities in the first six months of 2016.
