Kidnapped Italian Priest Freed in Philippines

An Italian priest held captive for over a month in the southern Philippines wants to return to his parish there after his Muslim rebel captors assured him he would not be seized again.

|PIC1|"I want to go back to Payao and help the people there," Giancarlo Bossi, told a local television station while eating bread and drinking coffee in a police camp in Zamboanga City, on the southwestern-most tip of the southern island of Mindanao.

"I was assured by my kidnappers that they would not get me again," said the Milan-native, speaking in a mixture of Visayan, the local language, and English.

"I have already talked to my family. I told them I would not go back to Italy. I want to stay here for a while."

The Catholic priest was released on Thursday night after a break-through in negotiations with his captors.

The missionary, who has lived in the Philippines for more than 20 years, said he was held by members of the Abu Sayyaf, a small Muslim militant group infamous for bombings, kidnappings and decapitations.

The military had said he was kidnapped by a rogue faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's largest Muslim rebel group, which is talking peace with the largely Catholic central government.

"They introduced themselves as Abu Sayyaf," Bossi said of the 11 men who snatched him at gunpoint near his church in Payao on Mindanao island.

"They said, 'We are sorry, we are kidnapping you only for money'."

The police said no ransom had been paid.

"We rejoice over the safe release of Father Bossi," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement before a private meeting with the priest at the presidential palace.

"We pray that he could soon gather his strength and recover from his ordeal."

In the search for Bossi earlier this month, the military lost 14 Marines, including 10 who were beheaded, threatening a peace process in the south.

"I feel like I am responsible for their death because they were there looking for me. Instead they were ambushed," said a teary-eyed Bossi during a news conference.

The priest, released on his mother's birthday, said he was treated well by his captors but given only salted rice and sometimes a piece of dried salted fish to eat.