Muslims Free U.S. Missionary in Philippines

Clutching an automatic rifle, a kidnaped American missionary rode to safety today aboard a motorized outrigger canoe with 10 of the armed men who held him captive for six days.

Brian Lawrence appeared slightly shaken as he climbed from the canoe on Lanao Lake, and had suffered numerous insect bites in the forest where he was held. He immediately asked for a drink of cold water.

“I feel very happy. I have to say my kidnapers always treated me well,” the 30-year-old Presbyterian evangelist said. “There were times I was threatened--you know how people are when they try to scare you. They said that if the military would conduct operations against them, I would be killed.”

However, “From the beginning, I knew that their intention was to release me and not to harm me,” Lawrence told a news conference after being taken to Marawi, about 510 miles south of Manila on Mindanao Island.

No Ransom Demands

The Madison, Wis., missionary was abducted by armed men last Saturday from his apartment in Marawi. He said the kidnapers made no demands for ransom, and local Muslim leaders who negotiated his release said nothing was paid.

His captors brought him in a canoe today from the island of Balut Masla in Lake Lanao to the village of Lilod, about 18 miles from Marawi. The gave him the automatic rifle to hold during the canoe ride, he said.

In Lilod, Lawrence was handed over to businessman Binasing Macarambon, a representative of the Muslim negotiators who secured his freedom.

The tall, bearded missionary was reunited in Marawi with his pregnant wife, Carol Ann, who burst into tears and clutched his hand. Lawrence saved her from the kidnapers by pushing her into a cabinet as the armed men broke into their apartment.