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February 14, 2002, The Philippine Star, Kidnapped Italian priest said wants ransom paid for his release,

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February 14, 2002, The Philippine Star, Kidnapped Italian priest said wants ransom paid for his release,

Davao City: Kidnapped Italian Catholic priest Giuseppe Pierantoni has written his superiors to assure them that he is still alive and to ask that ransom be paid for his freedom.

In a handwritten letter, dated 11 January and sent through an emissary of the kidnappers, Pierantoni said: "I am writing you to let you know I am alive and in good health. I am ready to go home, as long as you pay the financial assistance requested by those who kidnapped me."

Fathers Jerry Sheehy and Aloisio Back, Pierantoni's superiors at the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Manila, believe that the Italian priest is still alive and appealed to his kidnappers to immediately release him. "After 14 weeks since Fr. Beppe was abducted, we wish to remember our brother priest and to make this statement," the two said.

"Today, Ash Wednesday, we celebrate the beginning of Lent, a time when we remember that our life is a gift from God/Allah and that we are on a journey going back to God/Allah. We wish to make a renewed appeal to Fr. Beppe's abductors, in the name of God/Allah: show some mercy and let him go free!"

Sheehy and Back said apart from the letter, they also received last 21 January some photographs and a tape-recorded message from Pierantoni.

Armed Forces spokesman Brig-Gen Edilberto Adan said military informants have assured that "very strong indications" show that Pierantoni is still alive. "Usually when a hostage is executed, the bandits announce this because they want propaganda mileage," he said. "But we have not received such [reports of execution], we believe he's still alive and the people holding him are still waiting for his redemption through ransom."

Negotiations are ongoing for the release of the 44-year-old priest but that the military is not aware of any plan to pay ransom to the kidnappers, he added.

Eid Kabalu, spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), assured yesterday that Pierantoni is still alive and being held captive "somewhere" in Western Mindanao. "The priest is very much alive and is being held captive somewhere in Western Mindanao, in the Zamboanga provinces," he said.

Kabalu warned the Catholic Church to be wary of "impostors" who are posing as emissaries of Pierantoni's kidnappers. "You should know how some of our Maranaw brothers do some trick," he said. "They have been playing on the fate of the Italian priest. There are many interested parties who want to make money out of the abduction of the priest. That's why I'm saying that the church should also be very careful with whom they are dealing." ...

Earlier, church and government officials rejected a demand for about one million dollars as ransom for Pierantoni, who was snatched on 16 October last year while having dinner in a convent in the coastal town of Dimatiling in Zamboanga del Norte.

Last week, Faisal Marohombsar, a leader of the Pentagon kidnap gang, was quoted as saying that the priest had died in captivity...

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