Malaysia detains 4 over Sabah abduction

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian police said Friday they had detained four people on Thursday evening for further investigation into the Semporna resort kidnapping.

The four, three men and a woman, are without any documents.

Chinese tourist abducted in Malaysia?

"We are getting their statements and are continuing our investigations," local press The Star quoted Hamza Taib, the Sabah Police Commissioner, as saying.

Hamza said they had not yet gotten vital information which could help crack the case.

He refused to comment whether the four people are related to the kidnapped Filipino worker, Marcy Dayawan, who is said to have been in the parent company of the resort for quite some time without working permit.

Two women, one Chinese tourist and a Filipino resort worker, had been abducted by a group of men from a Semporna resort in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah on Wednesday evening.

Initial investigation showed that the kidnappers were believed in the Philippine waters on Thursday and the authorities believe the victims have been safe so far.

It is the second kidnapping at a resort there after the first one involving tourists from China's Taiwan, leaving one dead and another rescued.

Pang Yuk Ming, Assistant Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister of Sabah, said it could put the tourism industry in Sabah "in a bad spot", on top of the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on March 8 which has reduced the arrival of tourists from China, the state's biggest foreign market, New Straits Times quoted him as saying.