The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted a spokesman for Abu Sayyaf as saying via telephone that the woman had fired upon them. “Our men shot back and killed her,” he said. 
 
 The newspaper said that the spokesman had made a man come to the phone and that he had identified himself as Jürgen Kantner. The account quoted him as saying: “Pirates took our boat and they took us.” 
 
 In Berlin, the foreign ministry said it was working with Philippine authorities to clarify the situation. “As always in such cases, I would like to be very tight-lipped,” said the ministry spokesman, Martin Schäfer. He stressed that there was no confirmation of the reported killing or the abduction. 
 
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 Uwe Janssen, editor in chief of the German yachting website, Yacht.de, noted the lack of official confirmation but wrote that a photograph released by the Philippine military authorities “is clear: the attacked vessel indeed belongs to Jürgen Kantner.” 
 
 The sailboat in the photo is marked Rockall, the same name that was on the vessel captured by the Somalis eight years ago. 
 
 Mr. Janssen said, “Everything suggests that the two victims” were Mr. Kantner and Ms. Merz. 
 
 In May 2009, Agence France-Presse reported that Mr. Kantner had returned to Somalia after the couple’s abduction and release, and quoted him as vowing to get the Rockall seaworthy once more and to set off for Asia. 
 
 “Why should I return to Germany, where I have nobody?” he was quoted as saying. “After 32 years on my boat, I have lost all contact with them.” He acknowledged “that it is a little bit like suicide,” and said he prayed that he would not get captured a second time. 
 
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 In a lengthy interview with the German magazine Yacht after the 2008 abduction, Mr. Kantner and Ms. Merz said they had been captured then while sailing close to the coast of Yemen, and that they had no warning of special danger. They dismissed suggestions that they had courted danger, citing cases of vessels robbed in calmer regions, like the Canary Islands or Corsica. ||||| ZAMBOANGA CITY—When the Inquirer spoke with kidnapped 70-year-old German national Juergen Kantner on Sunday afternoon, he repeatedly said the name “Sabine Merz” and the word “pirates.” 
 
 On Monday, it was learned that Sabine Merz was his wife who, according to the Abu Sayyaf, was killed on Saturday when she tried to shoot members of the rebel group. 
 
 “Our men shot back and killed her,” Muamar Askali alias Abu Ramie, the self-proclaimed spokesperson of the Abu Sayyaf, told the Inquirer. 
 
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 Ramie said they chanced upon the couple onboard their yacht cruising the water of Tanjong Luuk Pisuk in Sabah. 
 
 Tawi-Tawi shooting 
 
 The shooting happened somewhere in Tawi-Tawi, according Askali. 
 
 Villagers reported finding a dead woman lying beside a shotgun on board a light blue yacht with the German flag and marked “Rockall” off Laparan Island in Sulu, Tan said. 
 
 The Task Force Tawi-Tawi recovered the light blue yacht in Laparan Island in the Pangutaran town of Tawi-Tawi on Sunday. 
 
 Maj. Filemon Tan Jr., spokesperson of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, said the body of a female foreigner, believed to be in her 50s, was found inside the yacht. 
 
 “The body sustained gunshot wounds and some bruises. A shotgun was also recovered beside the woman’s body,” Tan said. 
 
 Tan said the passports of Kantner and Merz were found on the Rockall. He said the photo in Merz’s passport appeared to match the body of the dead woman aboard, although her identity still needed to be confirmed. 
 
 “The body was brought to Zamboanga for autopsy,” Tan said. 
 
 “What’s alarming is that the body was naked and had several contusions in the face and was possibly raped,” he said. 
 
 He said the military had listened to an audio recording of a known Abu Sayyaf leader claiming responsibility for the raid on the yacht, and the abducted German man also spoke on the phone call. 
 
 It was not the first time the Kantners were held captive. 
 
 An Agence France-Presse report said they were also held hostage by Somali pirates in June 2008, and were freed 52 days later. 
 
 AFP interviewed Kantner and his wife, Sabine Merz, in 2009 about their ordeal when they returned to Somalia to retrieve their boat. 
 
 Despite being subjected to a mock execution during his ordeal, Kantner said the threat of kidnapping would never stop him from sailing. —WITH REPORTS FROM JULIE ALIPALA, AFP AND AP
– A German couple who's spent four decades sailing the world has apparently been abducted by pirates for a second time, with what appears to be a fatal result. Jürgen Kantner and Sabine Merz—who were held by Somali pirates for 52 days in 2008, until a six-figure ransom was reportedly paid—were seized by Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines on Saturday, the New York Times reports. Merz fired at the militants, and "our men shot back and killed her," an Abu Sayyaf spokesman told the Philippine Daily Inquirer over the phone. A man who identified himself as Kantner then came on the line claiming, "pirates took our boat and they took us." Abu Sayyaf militants also killed two Canadians earlier this year. The German Foreign Ministry says it's investigating the reports but hasn't confirmed the abduction or Merz's death. However, the Philippine military released a photo of the attacked boat, recovered on Sunday, which shows it to be the same 30-foot yacht, dubbed the Rockall, that was seized by pirates in 2008. A military rep says a woman's naked body was also found on board bearing "gunshot wounds" and signs of a sexual assault. "A shotgun was also recovered beside the woman's body," the rep says. A year after their first abduction, Kantner told the AFP that he would keep sailing, but "I pray to God that pirates won't get me again. Of course, buying a gun is an option." (An American man was held for 18 days by Dolly Parton-loving pirates.)