The suspect, Kabili Anguling, who earlier confessed to being a "platoon leader" of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), has been tagged as one of those who masterminded the June 23 abduction of Kris Kurt Degracia in nearby Parang town.
"I will not stop searching for you until the people will see you dead, your head perforated with bullets. So better wear a combat helmet and bullet-proof vest now," an irate Mayor Tucao Mastura warned Anguling in the dialect in an interview with Catholic radio station dxMS in Cotabato City.
Parang Mayor Hadji Talib Abo confirmed that Anguling negotiated the release of Degracia with the boy’s abductors, who police probers later discovered are Anguling’s close relatives.
"There is a strong connection between (Anguling) and those who held the boy captive," Abo said.
Abo succeeded in working out the boy’s release by duping his captors that ransom was to be paid.
The kidnappers freed the boy somewhere at the Sultan Kudarat-Parang boundary, believing that someone would deliver the P500,000 ransom to them.
The boy’s family operates a hardware store in Parang, 15 kilometers northeast of this town.
Mastura said Anguling has been hiding in Barangay Darapanan here since his direct involvement in the abduction was exposed last week.
Mastura said he and his men were supposed to raid Anguling’s lair the other day, but balked after community elders interceded, promising to work out the suspect’s peaceful surrender.
He said Anguling has declined to give himself up and even refused a challenge for him to swear on the Qur’an that he had nothing to do with the boy’s abduction.
"If he can do that traditional rite in the presence of Muslim clerics, I will exonerate him right away. But he has refused, an indication that he is guilty, indeed," he told dxMS.