ZAMBOANGA CITY, 2 July 2007 — Gunmen holding a kidnapped Italian priest in the southern Philippines have broken off talks with emissaries, making negotiations for the safe release of the hostage now more difficult, officials said.

Gunmen seized the Milan-born Father Giancarlo Bossi, a member of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (PIME), on June 10 in the coastal town of Payao in Zamboanga Sibugay province.

In Rome, the Italian government said it is sending a top envoy to the Philippines to work for the release of Bossi.

A veteran of several humanitarian missions when she was a foreign ministry official for many years, Margherita Boniver, now a prominent lawmaker, will travel to the Philippines tomorrow “to work for a positive conclusion” of the abduction, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said it has been in contact with the pontifical institute as well as the papal envoy’s office in the Philippines.

It noted that the city of Rome was hanging up a photograph of the priest in City Hall Square atop the Capitoline Hill “to give witness to the attention and the commitment” of those working for his release.

The government said Bossi is being held captive by a group led by Akiddin Abdusallam, who had been linked to ransom kidnappings in Western Mindanao.

Officials of the Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, yesterday said the kidnappers have stopped talking with both government and rebel emissaries for a still unknown reason.

“The rescue operation for the Italian priest, Giancarlo Bossi, is still uncertain,” the MILF said in a statement, adding that “Bossi’s kidnappers are highly elusive.”

Military officials gave conflicting reports about Bossi’s whereabouts and first said the priest was in Naga town in Zamboanga Sibugay and that troops had surrounded the kidnappers’ hideout.

But days later the military said Bossi is being held in nearby Lanao del Norte province. It again said that the priest is still in Zamboanga Sibugay. There were too many security officials making different statement about the progress of Bossi’s kidnapping.

Manila has sent three emissaries last week to try getting proof that Bossi is still alive.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu has previously said that the kidnappers were demanding “tens of millions of pesos” in ransom.

Another senior MILF leader, Mohagher Iqbal, said the kidnappers only demanded P15 million.

Marine Maj. Gen. Mohammad Dolorfino, head of the government’s ad hoc joint action group involved in the peace process with the MILF, disputed the statements of Kabalu and Iqbal. He said the kidnappers have not made any ransom demand so far.

Army Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo, commander of the Western Mindanao Command, said they have “good and positive” developments about Bossi, but he would not give details, saying, it could jeopardize the operation to free the missioner.

Kidnappings-for-ransom has become a lucrative business for rebels and criminal syndicates in Mindanao, where many areas are underdeveloped and job opportunities are scarce.

Sometimes criminal gangs kidnapped civilians and hand them over to rebels in exchange for a cut in the ransom. Poverty has been blamed for many kidnappings in the South.

Rebels also kidnapped Italian priest Luciano Benedetti in Zamboanga del Norte province in 1998. Benedetti, 52, was held for nearly 10 weeks until he was freed in exchange for a huge ransom.

In 2001, gunmen also 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 frm Stockholm syndrome, a phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to his or her captor. (With report by The Associated Press)