The group seized Kjartan Sekkingstad from an upscale resort on Samal island in Davao del Norte along with a Filipina.
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Mr Sekkingstad said he also survived numerous military attacks on his captors and even saved as a souvenir a bullet that went through his backpack.
Maj. Filemon Tan Jr., a spokesman of Western Mindanao Command, said the Indonesians were abducted July 9 off Lahad Datu, Sabah and taken by Abu Sayyaf to Sulu, Philstar Global reported. He is now in a camp in the regional capital Jolo.
Sekkingstad fell ill while in captivity, according to a Philippine army officer who helped monitor the kidnapping.
Mr. Duterte’s communications secretary, Martin M. Andanar, said in Manila that “the government maintains the no-ransom policy”.
The Abu Sayyaf has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the USA and the Philippines for deadly bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.
Ridsdel was executed by the Abu Sayyaf on April 25 and Robert Hall, Flor’s fiancé, on June 13 for non-payment of P300 million ransom.
Arevalo said the massive military operations against the terrorists has something to do with the release of the Norwegian captive.
Meanwhile, another Indonesian was released Sunday night, together with two Filipino telecommunications technicians.
Last week at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he was considering shifting priority away from the United States for acquisition of defense equipment. The three Indonesians were taken to the nearby city of Zamboanga where a retired Indonesian general was waiting to pick them up.
Sekkingstad told reporters in Indanan, Sulu, before he was brought to Davao City to meet with Duterte that he felt “lucky to be alive”.
It is unclear whether a ransom was paid to secure Sekkingstad’s release.
However, a spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf was quoted in a local newspaper on Sunday as saying the group received P30 million (about $625,000) for the Norwegian.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines said the two employees of a Philippines telecom company were found late Sunday by a villager in Panglima Estino town in the southern island province of Sulu.
The successful negotiation that led to the victim’s release, the President said, is “the best thing that happened this week because we were able to fulfill our promise to Norway, which is giving us a space to talk vis-a-vis with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)”.
The Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of a militants formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
“We know the Armed Forces of the Philippines deployed around 10,000 troops [recently] and now there are 20,000 in the [southern] region to crush the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group”, Ryamizard Ryacudu told reporters at a military camp during a visit to southern Zamboanga City.
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The Abu Sayyaf demanded a huge ransom for the release of the foreigners, and released videos in which they threatened the captives in a lush jungle clearing where they displayed Islamic State group-style black flags.
