Father Giancarlo Bossi, freed on Thursday night after days of negotiations with the militants led by a former Islamic rebel, said he was repeatedly forced to march through the jungle at gunpoint as his captors tried to evade the authorities.

The 57-year-old said his kidnappers had told him that they were members of Abu Sayyaf, an extremist group that the US and Philippine governments say is linked to Al-Qaeda.

But police said his captors were members of a breakaway faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a separatist guerilla group holding peace talks with the Philippine government.

Father Bossi said his abductors were taking orders from an unnamed person by mobile telephone and were seeking a 50 million peso (S$1.7 million) ransom to raise money to prepare for an unspecified rebel operation.

'I was the means to get a ransom. That's what they told me,' he said. 'I memorised their faces and said if I see any of them around I will go to the police and tell them that is one of my kidnappers,' he said.

Philippine officials insisted no ransom was paid, and Father Bossi said he did not see any exchange of money.

In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI welcomed the news with 'great joy', said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.

Father Bossi was seized on the southern peninsula of Zamboanga after celebrating Sunday Mass on June 10. He said he was then forced to board a boat that took him to the Lanao region of Mindanao.

'We changed hiding places sometimes, walking up mountains and crossing fields but we never strayed from there,' said the priest, who lost around 6.8kg after being given only salted fish and rice to eat.

Efforts this month to find Father Bossi turned violent on southern Basilan island where Islamic militants ambushed Philippine marines who were investigating a tip-off that he was being held in the area. Fourteen marines were killed, and 10 of them were beheaded.

Manila believes the attackers were a mix of fighters from Abu Sayyaf and the MILF, which has denied any involvement in the beheadings.

The 12,000-strong MILF, which has a three- year-old truce in place as it negotiates peace with the government, says its forces attacked the marines after they entered MILF territory without notice.

Father Bossi said he would visit the families of the dead marines and vowed to resume his parish work in the southern town of Payao.

'My plan from the beginning was to go back to Payao and tell the people that I'm still alive,' he said, wiping away tears as his voice broke. 'My heart is still in Payao.'

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE