Rebels call off climbers’ release

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 7

Rebels call off climbers’ release

NZPA-AFP Davao CityCommunist guerrillas called off yesterday’s scheduled release of three foreign mountaineers taken captive near Davao City last week, a priest in contact with the rebels said. The New People’s Army said it could not free the three, who had been suspected of beingspies but were cleared, because of alleged military movements and shellings around Mount Apo, Roman Catholic Father Dioscoro Bocod said. The priest told reporters and Red Cross members that he had been in contact by radio yesterday with the captors of New Zealand’s Trevor Anderson, aged 35, Britain’s James Smart, aged 40, and Irishman Gerald Kennedy, aged 22, and their Filipino companion. Mr Smart, a caver from Somerset, Mr Anderson, a telephone technician from Tauranga, and Mr Kennedy, a postgraduate student from Cork, were among 300 mountaineers stopped by the guerrillas on April 4 while taking part in an annual climb on Mount Apo, the Philippine’s highest peak. Five Filipino companions had volunteered to be taken captive along with the foreigners, but the guerrillas had freed all but one of the Filipinos on Saturday.