Marites Flor says she saw Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall moments before they were killed in April and this month

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Abu Sayyaf extremists in the Philippines rejoiced as they watched two Canadians being beheaded, a freed hostage has said.



Marites Flor tearfully recalled how John Ridsdel and Robert Hall were separately handcuffed and led away to jungle clearing to be decapitated in April and last week respectively. She said Hall was her fiance.

“It’s so painful because I saw them moments before they got beheaded,” Flor told reporters in southern Davao city, where she was flown to meet the president elect, Rodrigo Duterte, after her release on Friday in nearby Sulu province.

“They were watching it and they were happy,” she said of the militants, adding that she did not witness the killings.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Ridsdel, one of the two Canadians killed by their captors in the Philippines. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Flor, 38, a Filipina, was abducted with Hall, Ridsdel and a Norwegian, Kjartan Sekkingstad, from a yacht resort on southern Samal island in September last year and taken to the jungles of the predominantly Muslim island province of Sulu. The militants killed the two Canadians after ransom deadlines lapsed. The captives were among two dozen people held by Abu Sayyaf this year.

Duterte said he had been told that Sekkingstad may already be on the way out of captivity, but did not provide details and appeared unsure of his statement. He later went into a meeting with the Norwegian ambassador.

Duterte cut short a speech at a nationally televised police ceremony when officials arrived and brought Flor, who appeared still distraught, to the stage. Duterte tried to console her and quietly asked a few questions.

In the speech he urged the Abu Sayyaf militants to stop ransom kidnappings, which he said had given the country “a very bad image”. He warned people against joining Abu Sayyaf, suggesting a major offensive was coming.

“There will be, I said, a reckoning one of these days,” he said.

It was not immediately clear whether a ransom was paid to secure the freedom of Flor, who appeared in Abu Sayyaf videos pleading for her life and those of her companions. In a final video a few days before Hall’s killing, she called on Duterte to save their lives.

Rebels with the Moro National Liberation Front and a Sulu official helped negotiate Flor’s release with an Abu Sayyaf commander, two officials from the military and police said.

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, condemned the killings and called on other nations not to pay ransoms if their citizens were abducted, to discourage the militants from carrying out more kidnappings.