ZAMBOANGA CITY, 8 July 2007 — After a month of unproductive search by authorities for kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi, his colleagues said they have received photographs showing the victim was still alive.
Spanish priest Angel Calvo, Bossi’s best friend in Zamboanga City, said the first photos of Bossi in captivity were sent late Thursday to his cell phone.
Authorities said they were analyzing the pictures to determine if they were recent enough to prove the victim is still alive.
“I saw one photograph and we are trying to authenticate this,” Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo, chief of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, told Arab News.
The military in the south has also obtained a recording of Bossi’s voice, said Luciano Benedetti, a priest at Bossi’s mission in Zamboanga City, although it was not immediately possible to confirm this claim.
“The (voice) tape is in the hands of the military, so they are trying to analyze it, translate what is inside,” Benedetti said, adding that the military was keeping the recording and its contents secret.
Benedetti did not say how the military got hold of the recording or how he had heard about it. He said no one at his mission had listened to the recording.
No military officials in the south were immediately available to comment on Benedetti’s claim, and Lt. Col.
Bartolome Bacarro, a military spokesman in Manila, said he wasn’t aware of any such recording.
The failure of the gunmen to make contact weeks after they abducted the 57-year old missionary in the coastal town of Payao in Zamboanga Sibugay province has worried his colleagues at the Pontificio Instituto Missioni Estere (PIME).
The coming of the pictures gave Bossi’s colleagues and sympathizers reason to hope he would soon be freed.
“There are now pictures of the captivity of Father Giancarlo Bossi. Taken in an undisclosed place where there are trees of a young forest. He is wearing the same clothes he wore on the day of his kidnapping. The cinelas (slippers) are red and new,” said the mission in a statement posted on a blog dedicated to the victim.
“There are rubber shoes too on the ground. Containers of water suggest that they are hiking up in some higher places, may be mountains, where the air is much thinner and cooler. Other things are inside these pictures, but we do not care! We will never put them in this Blog. They make us sad. We like other pictures; those of the day of his liberation!” it said.
The emergence of Bossi’s pictures were the only positive development since the arrival in the Philippines of Italian lawmaker Margherita Boniver, who was sent by her government to oversee Bossi’s release.
Boniver arrived in Zamboanga City with Italian Ambassador Rubens Fedele to work with local authorities for the freedom of Bossi.
Cautious
Boniver and Bossi’s colleagues, however, were cautious about calling the pictures “proof of life,” saying they “could have been taken 12 to 14 days after his abduction.”
“His fellow priests said he lost lots of weight, and his beard is different from the time when he was kidnapped,” Boniver said.
Claretian priest Angel Calvo said that the photos he got did not come from Bossi’s captors. He said he got the pictures from a person who came from the village of Bohe Bessey in Akbar town (formerly Tuburan town) in Basilan.
On that same morning, Calvo sent an SMS to the Inquirer asking about updates on the Bossi kidnapping. When told about an encounter between government forces and Abu Sayyaf bandits in the same village, Calvo sent this message: “Funny, I had somebody who came to me from that place claiming to know someone who has evidence but he is asking for money. Today he is going to Manila.”
On Friday noon, Calvo told the Inquirer that the guy from Akbar town went to him claiming proof of life of Bossi “but he is asking for P100,000.”
Calvo refused to identify the person.
Too Many Pretenders
With the reported encounter between government soldiers and Abu Sayyaf bandits the day before, the Inquirer called Brig. Gen. Ramiro Alivio, commander of the 1st Marine Brigade, to check if he received information about emissaries bringing some sort of “proof of life.”
But Alivio said that in Basilan there were “many people mushrooming now, pretending as informants, claiming to have in possession proof of life in exchange for cash.”
Senior Superintendent Francisco Cristobal, police chief of Zamboanga Sibugay, agreed that a lot of people “were providing information about sightings and leads, but nothing substantial so far.”
Task Force Bossi chief Col. Jovencio Magalso said he, too, received reports about sightings and demands for “board and lodging fee.”
But Magalso said reports of kidnappers demanding ransom “are simply reports, no confirmation.”
At around 5:45 p.m. Friday, Calvo finally admitted to the Inquirer that he was able to get hold of Bossi’s photos which was sent to him thru Bluetooth.
“It looks like he appears OK in the pictures with green background which I presume is a forest,” Calvo said.
Calvo, in an SMS message to the Inquirer, said he got the photos from the same person who went to him Thursday.
“According to this fellow, he also gave copies to the PNP in Manila,” Calvo said.
Calvo said that “somebody” also claimed to have a copy of Bossi’s voice recording.
Fr. Gianni Sandalo, the regional superior of the PIME, declined to comment when asked on Friday evening if the photos could be considered “proof of life.” (With input from AP & Inquirer News Service)
