MANILA, Philippines — Police found a severed head in the southern Philippines on Monday and are examining whether it belonged to a Canadian hostage who is believed to have been beheaded by Abu Sayyaf militants after a ransom deadline passed, officials said. The hostage, Robert Hall, was abducted from a marina last September along with another Canadian, a Norwegian and a Filipino. The United States and the Philippines have both listed the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organization for kidnappings, beheadings and bombings. Police Superintendent Junpikar Sitin said troops found the head late Monday in a plastic bag on a street in Jolo town in Sulu province. “Our troops thought it was a bomb but found out it was a head,” Sitin said by telephone from Jolo, a poor, predominantly Muslim region.

Source: Washington Post June 13, 2016 13:03 UTC