The Ugandan army said it freed three Catholic priests on Thursday - two Italians and a Spaniard - who had been held for over 24 hours on suspicion of collaborating with rebels in the north of Uganda.
"We have released these chaps...we normally capture rebels and then release them and tell them not to do it again, we have done the same to the priests," said spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza.
He said the priests were found in possession of radio batteries, medicines and letters from rebel collaborators in London addressed to the rebels.
The Spanish priest, Carlos Rodriguez Soto, had been wounded in the arm when caught in crossfire between the army and rebels.
The army asked the priests to write a statement explaining why they had not told the military of their mission.
"They are supposed to inform the army before undertaking such missions," Bantariza said. "For all intents and purposes they do not look like they were on a peace mission."
The Italian priests were Giulio Albanese, director of the missionary news service MISNA, and Tarcisio Pazzaglia, 68.
The three were arrested on Wednesday during a battle between soldiers and rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
MISNA also said Rodriguez Soto, 43, was wounded in the arm.
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has launched a ground and air offensive to crush a 15-year uprising by the LRA, a guerrilla group led by a self-styled prophet who wants to rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Commandments.
The Kampala mission of the Rome-based Comboni Missionary Fathers, an international community of missionary priests, said the priests had been on a peace mission and had received prior permission from the army to meet the rebels.
CAPTURED DURING BATTLE
"We captured them (the priests) in the course of a battle with the LRA in Padere district (on Wednesday)," Bantariza said.
"What we are trying to find out is what were they doing there. If they were on a peace mission, how come local leaders and security forces in the area do not know about it?"
MISNA said the Ugandan soldiers took the priests to Gulu after capturing them in the battle in Kitgum in northern Uganda.
A spokesman for the Comboni Fathers said Albanese, 43, had arrived from Italy last week to take part in peace talks with the rebels.
"He and the other two fathers got permission from the army to talk to the rebels, and while they were talking the army attacked and arrested them," spokesman Fr Mariano Lubich told Reuters by telephone from Kampala.
In June Museveni gave the go-ahead to northern Uganda's religious leaders to broker peace talks between the rebels and the government.
Last week Museveni offered the rebels a one-week cease-fire if they stopped attacking civilians and the army and gathered in chosen sites in northern Uganda and southern Sudan.
Museveni has poured up to 14,000 troops, tanks and artillery into northern Uganda to smash the LRA, but the rebels have evaded army units and caused more havoc.