Freed American Denies Rebel Conspiracy

MANILA —  A California man, rescued barefoot and mosquito-bitten from Muslim rebels who threatened to behead him, denied Friday that he had conspired with the guerrillas and said he slipped from his chains as elite troops fired on his captors.

Jeffrey Schilling, 25, of Oakland, wolfed down fried chicken, fried fish, an omelet, rice, a sandwich and chunks of mango in his first meal in freedom before flying to Manila to meet army generals and U.S. Embassy officials. He told reporters that he lost 100 pounds in seven months as a hostage of the Abu Sayyaf rebels.

A day after troops chased off his captors in a raid on the southern island of Jolo, 600 miles south of Manila, Schilling, looking fit and alert, said he wanted to “go back to the U.S. and be with my family.”

Schilling, a Muslim convert, denied persistent rumors that he was a willing hostage of the group, which says it is fighting to carve a separate Muslim homeland out of the southern Philippines.

Schilling was kidnapped while visiting a rebel camp last August, shortly after he married a guerrilla leader’s cousin.