Philippine Muslim rebels execute Canadian citizen
On April 25, Islamic rebels in the southern Philippines killed one of the two Canadian hostages after a six-month kidnapping. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau immediately condemned this action.
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| Canadian hostage John Ridsdel. (Source: Reuters) |
A VNA correspondent in Canada cited local sources as saying that the murdered hostage was John Ridsdel, 68 years old, a resident of Calgary city in southern Alberta province.
Prime Minister Trudeau confirmed that Ridsdel had been executed and called his killers "cold-blooded killers."
The news of Ridsdel's murder came just hours after the ransom deadline passed. In a video released on April 15, Ridsdel and three other hostages pleaded with the Canadian and Philippine governments and their families to pay 300 million pesos ($6.2 million) each to the kidnappers. The deadline was 3:00 p.m. on April 25, Philippine time.
Ridsdel was one of four hostages, including another Canadian, Robert Hall, a Norwegian and a Filipino woman, kidnapped by masked gunmen on September 21, 2015, at a resort in Davao, southern Philippines.
The hostages were believed to have been taken to Jolo Island in Sulu, a densely forested province in the southern Philippines where many other hostages are being held. The kidnappers are believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf group, which has been listed as a terrorist group by Canada since 2003./.
According to Vietnam+
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