Three charged in connection with Sinnott kidnap

Three suspected Muslim separatist rebels have been charged in connection with the kidnapping of an Irish priest in the Philippines, the national police chief said today.

Director-general Jesus Verzosa said police filed charges of kidnapping for ransom and illegal detention with the prosecutor’s office of southern Pagadian city yesterday.

Fr Michael Sinnott was kidnapped in the volatile south on October 11. He was freed unharmed on Thursday after a month in captivity.

The three suspects, alleged members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), have denied involvement and said they even helped pressure the kidnappers to release the 79-year-old priest.

Prosecutors will review the evidence to determine whether there is enough to file the case in court.

Mr Verzosa said the three men were among six gunmen who seized Fr Sinnott, a long-time missionary in the southern Philippines, from his residence in Pagadian in the Mindanao region, home to several armed groups fighting for Muslim self-rule in the predominantly Catholic nation.

Mohagher Iqbal, head of the rebel group’s negotiating panel for peace talks with the government, has denied guerrillas were involved in the abduction and said the group even exerted “moral pressure” on the kidnappers to release the elderly missionary.

On Thursday, rebel representatives handed him over to government authorities.

Officials had feared Fr Sinnott, a member of the Mission Society of Saint Columban, could suffer a fatal heart attack because he was still recovering from heart bypass surgery.

Fr Sinnott said his kidnappers demanded a $2m (€1.34m) ransom but he was not sure whether any money changed hands. The Irish and Philippine governments and Iqbal said no ransom was paid.

Fr Sinnott said he was held by two groups of kidnappers and they told him they had no other means of getting arms and bullets except by money from ransom. They told him they were fighting for an independent Islamic state, he said.

Mr Verzosa said investigators were still gathering evidence against five other Moro guerrillas – three senior commanders and two who are wanted in connection with the 2007 kidnapping of Italian missionary priest Giancarlo Bossi.

The Philippines has grappled with a spate of kidnappings in the south this year, most of them blamed on al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants operating on islands further south.

Among their victims were three International Red Cross workers and local teachers.

On Monday, the militants allegedly beheaded a kidnapped schoolteacher on Jolo island after his family failed to raise enough ransom money.