Muslim rebels release Italian priest after a month of negotiations

MANILA (AP) - An Italian missionary priest kidnapped in the southern Philippines has been released after more than a month following negotiations his separatist Muslim rebel captors, police said Friday.

The Rev. Giancarlo Bossi, 57, was kidnapped in Zamboanga Sibugay province on June 10 while on his way to celebrate Mass. He was freed around 9 p.m. (1300 GMT) Thursday in Karumatan township, in the southern Lanao Del Norte province, near the boundary with Lanao Del Sur province, said Chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal, a regional police commander.

"He's being subjected now to medical examination," Caringal said. "He is well, but he lost a lot of weight. He said that he felt weak. He said he suffered from diarrhea."

Caringal said no ransom was paid and that Bossi was freed peacefully.

Bossi, who said he wanted to meet with his parishioners before heading back to Italy to see his family, said his captors treated him "with respect."

"I never had the sensation that they wanted to kill me, nor did I ever receive a death threat or violence of any kind," Bossi told the MISNA missionary news agency.

"The food wasn't great: rice, salt and dried fish. As a result I lost some weight. But I also stopped smoking; I haven't touched a cigarette since June 27."

Asked to reflect on his ordeal, Bossi said: "I still have to think about it. I need to reflect in great silence. For now, I can only say one thing: It was an experience I don't recommend to anyone."

Bossi's relatives in Italy were celebrating his mother's 87th birthday when they heard he had been released.

"Truly it's the best present for my mother's birthday," Bossi's brother Marcello Bossi told Sky TG24.

Caringal said Bossi's release came after negotiations involving a former local mayor and the kidnappers, who he identified as rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main Muslim separatist group in the southern Philippines that has been involved in peace negotiations with the government.

But Bossi said the kidnappers claimed they belonged to the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group and came from nearby Basilan island.

"At the beginning, there were 11 kidnappers, but at the end only five remained," he said, adding that he was never moved from Lanao Del Norte.

Police said Bossi's captors took him to a road where he was picked up by a team of police. Looking as if he had lost a lot of weight, Bossi was barefoot and wearing a black jacket and loose brown trousers that did little to ward off the chill. He was to be flown in a private jet to Manila later Friday.

When Italian Premier Romani Prodi got word of the release, he jubilantly told reporters in Rome he was "truly emotional, happy."

Philippine forces have been intensely searching for Bossi across the south. Authorities initially blamed a MILF commander for the kidnapping but the group denied any role in the abduction and deployed forces in the initial weeks after the abduction to help government troops search for Bossi.

On July 10, a Philippine marine convoy checking a reported sighting of the priest was ambushed by Muslim insurgents in dense jungle on the southern island of Basilan, and 14 troops were killed, 10 of them beheaded. The military blamed the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group for the clash, which left nine other marines wounded.