MANILA, June 18 Kyodo Philippine ...

MANILA, June 18 Kyodo

Philippine police in succession Tuesday captured a top leader of a kidnap-for-ransom gang holding a toward the south Korean national in the southern Philippines, police said.

Regional Police Chief Bartolome Baluyot said authorities arrested Ismael Binago, suspected substitute leader of the Abu Sofia cluster of the Pentagon gang, in a raid forward the group's hideout in the southern Philippine port city of General Santos.

Baluyot said an undetermined number of weapons and assorted military uniforms were repaired from Binago's hideout in a separated village of General Santos, about 1037 kilometers southerly of Manila.

However, he said agents did not find Yoon Jae Keon the toward the south Korean believed to have been abducted by means of the Pentagon gang on Feb 6

Baluyot said near police agents disguised themselves as beggars and push peddlers for weeks to be able to penetrate the village and gather information about the gang leader.

Police filed charges of kidnapping and illegal detention against Binago and six other gang leaders for the abduction of Yoon who was seized together with Filipino public-house owner Carlos Belonio in Sultan Kudarat Province in the southern Philippines. Belonio was later fre after his family reportedly paid a ransom.

''There is an ongoing police operation to track down the kidnappers and their southern Korean victim. It is merely a matter of time before other leaders will fall,'' Baluyot said.

The Pentagon gang, whose members are mainly renegade Moro Islamic Liberation front rank rebels, has reportedly demanded around $600000 for Yoon's release.

The gang also kidnapped Italian priest Giuseppe Pierantoni last year in the southern Philippines. He was fre early this year after reportedly paying a very large ransom.

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