MANILA – A former mayor on trial for allegedly killing a political rival was shot dead and two people were wounded yesterday in a Manila court during a hearing in the case, police and officials said.

All staff and visitors at Manila city hall were escorted from the building as police mounted a room-by-room search for at least two suspects, including a tall man wearing a police uniform.

Rey Yap, a former municipal mayor from Mindanao , was killed. One of his bodyguards and a woman were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds, Manila mayor Alfredo Lim said.

Police suspect the courtroom attack was linked to the 1992 assassination of a political rival of Yap , for which he was on trial, Lim said.

"This led to vendetta killings between these two families," said Lim, a former Manila police chief.

Yap had been granted bail and did not have police protection at the time of the shooting. He survived an ambush "somewhere outside the city hall several years ago," Lim said.

Meanwhile, suspected Abu Sayyaf militants kidnapped a businesswoman in Jolo, the military said yesterday.

The woman was seized outside her house in Jolo at dawn Monday and her relatives were said to be negotiating for her release, the military said.

It was not known if a ransom demand had been received.

The incident came ahead of joint anti-terror training exercises between US and Filipino forces scheduled to begin next month in the southern Philippines .

Abu Sayyaf militants earlier this month seized a teacher after killing a missionary in the nearby island of Tawi-Tawi .

The teacher, Omar Taup, was taken at gunpoint on January 15 when the Abu Sayyaf's main target, Father Reynaldo Roda, resisted and was shot dead.

Tawi-Tawi police chief Wainwright Taup, the victim's cousin, on Tuesday said the militants had demanded a ransom of P1 million.

The increased Abu Sayyaf activity comes amid a military crackdown that has seen their numbers fall from over a thousand fighters seven years ago to less than 300 at present.

The group is blamed for the Philippines ' worst terrorist attacks, including a ferry bombing that left over 100 dead in 2004, and the kidnapping deaths of two American hostages.

US troops have been providing intelligence back up as well as training for Filipino forces in going after the Abu Sayyaf, which has been linked to the Al Qaeda and its Asian arm, the Jemaah Islamiyah.*AFP

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