Security forces set up cordon to trap priest's abductors

PHILIPPINE ARMED forces trying to locate kidnapped Irish priest Fr Michael Sinnott have set up a land and sea cordon in the southern coastal area to try and flush out the abductors.

Seventy-nine-year-old Fr Sinnott, who was abducted while taking an evening stroll in his garden in Pagadian City on the restive island of Mindinao on Sunday, has been sighted three times, police said, but there was still no indication of his definite whereabouts.

Gunmen burst in to the compound, grabbed him and pushed him into a mini-van, which was later found burnt out.

The southern Philippines is home to most of the largely Catholic country’s Muslim minority.

Authorities believe al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf or the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front are behind the abduction. Both groups, as well as other unnamed Muslim armed gangs, are known to operate in parts of Lanao.

However, the 12,000-strong Moro front denied it was behind the attack, and said it was willing to help troops track down the kidnappers and recover the priest.

“We are not involved in this, and we see no reason why our men should be involved in this,” its spokesman Eid Kabalu told the Agence France Presse.

Maj Gen Ben Dolorfino, the western Mindanao commander, told a teleconference in Manila that security forces had set up checkpoints and placed four vessels off the coast.

The army was trying to identify the kidnapping gang, which has probably grown from the original six abductors, he said.

Irish Ambassador to Singapore Richard O’Brien was in the Philippines to help secure the Wexford-born priest’s release.

Kidnappers have not yet made contact with the authorities or issued a ransom demand.

There are growing fears for Fr Sinnott’s wellbeing as he has had heart surgery.

“We cannot say anything about his condition but we know he recently underwent bypass surgery and considering that situation his captors may not move him around to different places,” Mr Dolorfino said.

Fr Pat O’Donoghue, regional director of the Columban Fathers, pleaded with the kidnap gang to let Fr Sinnott go and said he could die if he failed to take his daily medicine.

“Whatever your motives are, please recognise the age and health condition of Father Sinnott and his love for the needy children with disabilities,” Fr O’Donoghue said in a message to the kidnappers.

If the Moro front is indeed not involved, then it looks likely that Abu Sayyaf is behind the abduction.

Founded in the 1990s with funding from Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda network, Abu Sayyaf meanwhile has been blamed for the poor southeast Asian nation’s worst terrorist attacks and they have a reputation for brutality.

Nine months ago the group abducted three Red Cross workers on the island of Jolo. They were released one by one in a hostage crisis that lasted for six months. The group was also blamed for kidnapping Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi, who was held for more than a month in 2007. Fourteen Philippine Marines were killed during a mission to find the priest.

Abu Sayyaf kidnapped a Filipino priest, Rhoel Gallardo, and a number of teachers in March 2000. He was tortured and beheaded two months later.

Fr Sinnott has spent about 40 years in the Philippines, first arriving in Mindanao in 1957 as a young missionary, serving for nine years before being posted abroad. He came back in 1976 and never left.

The abduction has made headlines in the Philippines, where the population was focused chiefly on a spate of natural disasters of late.