Filipino militants free Australian hostage

           
Al-Qaida-linked militants in the southern Philippines on Saturday released an emaciated-looking Australian man near a coastal town where they kidnapped him for ransom 15 months ago.                         

Warren Richard Rodwell was brought to police by residents of Pagadian city who saw him walking before dawn near the fishing port, where his abductors dropped him off, said local police chief Julius Munez.                            

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard praised Rodwell's family for showing "a great deal of courage and stoicism in what has been a tremendously difficult situation."                          

Philippine security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said a ransom was paid for Rodwell's release, as was usually the case with other hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf over the last two decades.                                  

Rodwell, 54, a former Australian soldier who was married to a Filipino woman and had settled down in the southern Philippines, was kidnapped in December 2011 from his seashore house in Ipil township west of Pagadian and taken by speedboat to nearby mountainous islands where Abu Sayyaf militants are hiding.                         


AP