NATIONAL BRIEFING / WASHINGTON, D.C.
Fourteen years after a mass kidnapping of four Americans and other vacationers at a Philippine resort, an alleged Muslim militant accused of leading the hostage-taking has been brought to the United States to face criminal charges.
Madhatta Haipe, a Philippine citizen who prosecutors say is a member of the violent Al Qaeda-linked militant group Abu Sayyaf, was extradited Thursday after being held in his home country for at least three months.
Haipe made an initial appearance in federal court in Washington. U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay ordered him held without bond pending trial.
Haipe’s indictment accuses him of leading a group of heavily armed kidnappers who took 16 people in 1995 from the remote, mountainous Traan-Kine Spring Resort at Lake Sebu, 640 miles southeast of Manila, and held them until a ransom was paid.
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