BY VICTOR REYES
TWO Marines abducted in Basilan Wednesday
were released yesterday without any conditions, said Lt. Col.
Leonard Vincent Teodoro, commander of the 7th Marine Battalion
Landing Team.
Teodoro said Corporals Jessie Duatin and
Bernie Alcabasa were freed around 12:10 a.m. at Makalang village
in Al Barkah town through Hadja Raiza Masud, a sister of the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front commander Malat Sulaiman alias
Long Masud.
Military officials on Thursday said Sulaiman
initially offered to exchange the two Marines for his nephew,
Salim Ali Masud, who was arrested by security forces last week
in Lamitan City for the ambush last July in Tipo-tipo town that
left 14 Marines dead, 10 of them beheaded.
Military officials admitted a mistake in the
arrest of Salim whom they suspected to be an Abu Sayyaf
terrorist. They said the name contained in the warrant of arrest
was actually Salim Alih.
Teodoro said Hadja merely convinced her
brother that the matter of releasing Salim is in the hands of
the courts.
Salim is in the custody of the Lamitan City
police.
The two Marines were flown to Zamboanga City, home of the
military's Western Mindanao Command, for debriefing.
