Kidnapped Jesuit alive in Syria, report claims
June 12, 2014
A Jesuit priest who disappeared in Syria last July is alive, and has met with Italian negotiators seeking his release, according to a Lebanese newspaper with ties to the Hezbollah movement.
The Italian foreign ministry said that the report by the daily al Akhbar was unreliable, and Jesuit officials said they had heard nothing about the whereabouts of the missing priest.
Rumors about Father Paolo Dall’Oglio have been published frequently since his disappearance. In May, a former member of a Syrian militia group said that he had witnessed the priest’s execution; that report, too, was generally deemed unreliable.
Father Dall’Oglio was reportedly traveling into Syria in an attempt to negotiate the release of hostages held by Islamic rebels when he disappeared.
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