Boat Used In Transporting Kidnapped Italian Missioner Recovered In Lanao del Norte

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Italian Priests In Philippines Put Up Blog To Keep Track Of Developments Of Kidnapped Prelate

ZAMBOANGA SIBUGAY (Mindanao Examiner / 20 Jun) – Italian missionaries in the Philippines have put up Wednesday a virtual diary on the Internet to keep track of developments of a kidnapped prelate from Milan.

Fr Giancarlo Bossi, of the Rome-based Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missionaries (PIME), was kidnapped by rebels on June 10 after celebrating mass on the village of Bulawan in Zamboanga Sibugay’s Payao town.

“It’s raining in Zamboanga City. Reports, rather than bringing relief, bring only sad confusion. Days ago the military said that Giancarlo would have been released by the days end, then in 24 hours, then 48 and now in 72,” the PIME diary said.

“Days ago, various agents of the shadowy yet trustworthy secret service told us that Giancarlo was being held in the area of Sibuguey. Then he was no longer there, but near Lanao del Norte (300 kilometres east); then reports placed him on Basilan island (300 kilometres West). It’s like shooting at the breeze. The truth is lost on the face of the map,” it added.

The kidnappers demanded one million dollars for the safe release of the 57-year old priest.

A Philippine military official, Major General Mohammad Dolorfino, said Wednesday that the priest was spotted by villagers in the mountain town of Nunugan in Lanao del Norte province.

He said Bossi is being guarded by at least 13 armed men, five of them belong to the Maranaw tribe and six are Kalibugan natives and the remaining two were believed to be from Maguindanao province.

“Yesterday the Italian ambassador Rubens Anna Fedele came to be with us, PIME missionaries, on his way from Manila to Payao. We thanked him for what he is doing.”

“Fr Gianni Sandalo’s visit to the site of the crime together with other, has conformed that those who kidnapped Father Giancarlo, those who carried out the dirty work of physically taking him, are people linked to the local criminal underworld, perhaps even hired by others who are from the shadows protecting who knows what to exploit the hostage,” the PIME diary said.

Sandalo is PIME superior in the Philippines.

“In the meantime he remains an anonymous hostage lost in the confusion of information, but at the same time he is someone who we know well, who is fighting to survive in this strange land, adapting himself to these rains, which drench him as well as his abductors,” PIME said on their journal.

The Italian ambassador, who was in Zamboanga City on Wednesday, said there were no reports about Bossi’s fate. “It is difficult to trace the kidnappers. It is next to impossible,” Fedele told reporters.

He also denied Philippine media reports that the Italian government would negotiate with the kidnappers for Bossi’s release. “What has happened is against the Filipino law. The judicial system has its own say. The Italian government is not negotiating with the kidnappers.”

“We are not using Italian police; it is the Philippine police which is involved. We are not using the Italian army; it is the Philippine army that is involved. We are not using the Italian judiciary system, it is the Filipino judiciary system,” Fedele said.

The MILF, which is negotiating peace with Manila, has been helping also in the search for Bossi.

Police tagged the leader of the gang holding Bossi as Akiddin Abdusallam, the deputy commander of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, operating in the Zamboanga Peninsula.

The MILF said Abdusallam was kicked out because of his criminal past and since then has joined the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group, blamed by authorities for terrorism and kidnappings of foreigners in the troubled, but mineral-rich southern region of Mindanao. (Juley Reyes, Joseph Danda and Juan Magtanggol)

Kidnapped Italian Priest Spirited By Captors In Southern Philippines

PIME Superior, the Rev. Gianni Sandalo, speaks on his phone in this photograph taken June 10, 2007 at his headquarters in Zamboanga City in southern RP after rogue MILF rebels kidnapped a fellow Italian missioner, Fr Giancarlo Bossi in Payao town in Zamboanga Sibugay province. Independent sources tell the Mindanao Examiner that the kidnappers have escaped a massive military rescue operation with their hostage and are believed hiding in Lanao del Norte province in the Muslim autonomous region.

(Mindanao Examiner Photo Service)

ZAMBOANGA SIBUGAY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / 18 Jun) – Kidnappers holding an Italian priest captive have escaped from a massive military rescue operation in the southern Filipino province of Zamboanga Sibugay, independent sources told the regional newspaper, the Mindanao Examiner, on Monday.

Sources said Fr Giancarlo Bossi may have been brought to Lanao Del Norte province after his captors allegedly escaped from Naga town in Zamboanga Sibugay province.

Security officials refused to comment on the reports.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels helping Filipino authorities Bossi, of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (PIME), said they have cordoned off an area where the priest is being held.

Bossi, 57, was kidnapped at gunpoint June 10 after celebrating mass in the village called Bulawan in the coastal town of Payao in Zamboanga Sibugay province.

Police tagged rogue MILF rebels led by Akiddin Abdusallam as behind the kidnapping.

But the MILF, which is currently negotiating peace with the government, said the gang leader has long been wanted because of his criminal activities and that he has joined the Abu Sayyaf group tied to al-Qaeda.

Rebel forces have earlier given ultimatum to the kidnappers to free the priest unharmed or face assault. Rebels have traced Bossi’s location in Lanao province, according to other sources, but the MILF would not confirm nor deny reports of the escape.

Maj. Gen. Nehemias Pajarito, commander of the Army’s First Infantry Division, earlier said his troops have also surrounded the kidnappers’ hideout and that it was only a matter of time before they can rescue the hostage.

Pajarito could not be contacted on Monday and his phones were turned off.

The MILF, which is talking peace with Manila, forged an agreement in 2004 that paved the way for rebel forces to help government hunt down terrorists and criminal elements in areas where the rebel group is actively operating.

But the accord ends on Thursday unless both sides agree to renew the interim pact and if not, the MILF may not be able to continue helping authorities rescue the missioner.

The MILF, the country’s largest Muslim rebel group, has previously helped in rescuing many Filipino and foreign kidnapped victims in the restive region of Mindanao. It also provided the Philippine government with a list of names of suspected Jemaah Islamiya militants hiding in Mindanao. (Mindanao Examiner)

Rebel Leader Denies Hand In Kidnap Of Italian Priest In Mindanao

ZAMBOANGA SIBUGAY (Mindanao Examiner / 13 Jun) – The chief suspect in the kidnapping of an Italian priest in the troubled southern Philippines region has denied involvement in the disappearance of Fr. Giancarlo Bossi.

Bossi, of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, was taken at gunpoint by renegade members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on June 10 after celebrating mass in the remote coastal village of Bulawan in Payao town in Zamboanga Sibugay province.

Police and military have tagged the brothers Akiddin and Waning Abdusallam in the kidnapping. The MILF, denying its involvement in the priest’s disappearance, disowned the two men, saying, they are Abu Sayyaf militants whose group is tied to al-Qaeda.

Police said Akiddin Abdusallam is the deputy commander of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces operating in the Zamboanga Peninsula.

Army Major General Nehemias Pajarito, in-charge for the rescue of the missioner, said Akiddin Abdusallam denied any participation in the Bossi’s kidnapping.

“Akiddin Abdusallam has denied any involvement in the kidnapping of the Italian priest. Fr. Bossi. He said he has no participation in the kidnapping. Authorities are investigating this claim,” Pajarito, commander of the First Infantry Division, told the independent regional newspaper, the Mindanao Examiner.

He did not say if Abdusallam, also tagged in previous kidnappings-for-ransom and piracy in Zamboanga, contacted the military or has sent an emissary to deny all the charges against him.

The 57-year old Bossi, from Italy’s Abbiategrasso region, has been described by his PIME superior, Rev. Gianni Sandalo, as a good man. “He is well-loved by everybody. He is a good man and Filipinos call him a gentle giant because of his huge size – he is about two meters tall,” the priest, also an Italian, said in a separate interview in Zamboanga City.

Bossi, who started his missionary in Payao in 1998, is the third Italian priest kidnapped in Zamboanga Peninsula in the past ten years.

Moro rebels kidnapped Fr. Luciano Benedetti, 52, in Zamboanga del Norte province in 1998 and held for nearly 10 weeks until he was freed in exchange for a huge government ransom.

In 2001, renegade MILF rebels snatched Fr. Giuseppe Pierantoni as the 44-year-old from Bologna said mass in the parish church of Dimataling town in Zamboanga del Sur.

The priest was freed after six months in captivity in exchange for an unspecified ransom, but he claimed to have escaped from his kidnappers. His companions claimed he suffered from Stockholm syndrome, a phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to his or her captor. (Mindanao Examiner)