Kidnapped businessman set free in Manila

Press, 2 April 1987, Page 10

Kidnapped businessman set free in Manila

NZPA-Reuter Manila A kidnapped Japanese businessman, Nobuyuki Wakaoji, ended 4 months in captivity when he rode to freedom in a jeepney after his abductors dumped him in a suburban Manila street, officials said yesterday. A presidential spokesman, Teodoro Benigno, said Mr Wakaoji had been bound hand and foot by his kidnappers for the whole of his detention, but was apparently in good health, clean shaven and wearing freshly pressed clothes when freed near a church on Tuesday night.

President Corazon

Aquino ordered a hunt for the kidnappers, who had demanded a ransom of SUSS million ($8.9 million) for Mr Wakaoji, aged 53, head of the Philippine branch of the giant Mitsui company.

After his release, Mr Wakaoji flagged down and boarded a jeepney — the brightly coloured, highly decorated jeeps converted into mini-buses that are Manila’s most popular means of public transport. The jeepney took him to a hotel, where he telephoned his company. Japanese embassy officials said the kidnappers had ordered Mr Wakaoji to wear dark glasses, and had given

him 200 pesos ($17.80) for his fare before leaving him in the street

The kidnappers had claimed to have cut off one of Mr Wakaoji’s fingers, but Mr Benigno denied this, saying: "He was never hurt, he was never tortured.”

The abduction of Mr Wakaoji badly hurt relations between Tokyo and Manila. Tourism from Japan to the Philippines dropped after the abduction. Mrs Aquino complained last month of a delay in investment pledges she had won during a visit to Japan shortly before the kidnapping. The Mitsui president, Koichiro Ejiri, said in

Tokyo that his company had negotiated with the kidnappers by telephone since late February. He declined to comment on whether the firm had paid a ransom to the kidnappers.

“If we announce whether the company had paid a ransom or not, it adds nothing, and it could cause a negative impact in the future,” Mr Ejiri told a press conference. Mr Benigno said the Philippine Government “paid nothing, not a single centavo.”

Mr Wakaoji had been held by a group calling itself “The Real Kidnappers” since he was forced from his car at

gunpoint last November 15. He was returning to Manila from a country golf course. Brigadier - General Romeo Zulueta, head of. a military unit in charge of the case, said investigators had already identified the kidnappers, but he could not release their names until they were arrested. .

Mrs Aquino said in a statement: “I am finally relieved and thankful that Mr Wakaoji has been released. However, I want the police to go after the kidnappers and continue their investigation until the kidnappers are apprehended.”