Maj. Gen. Nehemias Pajarito, commander of the Army's First Infantry Division, in Mindanao, says Tuesday, 12 June 2007, troops are tracking down kidnapped Italian priest Fr. Giancarlo Bossi in Zamboanga Sibugay province. Authorities blame rogue Moro rebels as behind the kidnapping.
ZAMBOANGA SIBUGAY (Mindanao Examiner / 12 Jun) – Philippine troops continued searching Tuesday for a kidnapped Italian priest in the restive southern region of Mindanao, officials said.
Father Giancarlo Bossi, 57, was kidnapped by rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after celebrating mass Sunday in the village of Bulawan in Zamboanga Sibugay’s Payao town, officials said.
Officials said church leaders were trying to contact the kidnappers for the safe release of the priest.
“Church officials and civilians are trying to contact the kidnappers, but so far there have been no words on the whereabouts of the Italian priest and his abductors,” Major General Nehemias Pajarito, commander of the Army’s First Infantry Division, told the regional newspaper, the Mindanao Examiner.
Police and military implicated a senior MILF leader Akiddin Abdusallam and his brother, Waning Abdusallam, as behind the kidnapping.
The MILF has denied involvement in the kidnapping and said the two men are members of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group, blamed for terrorism and previous kidnappings of foreigners in the southern Philippines.
Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Rabasio, an army spokesman, told reporters that church leaders have sent out SMS in the province in the hope the message would reach the kidnappers and free the priest.
He said: “Civilian and religious sectors are trying to open up negotiations with the kidnappers.”
Rabasio said troops were tracking down the kidnappers in the province. (With reports from Juley Reyes and Joseph Danda)
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