Jakarta – Rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province have released five Muslim leaders who police say were abducted after meeting President Megawati Sukarnoputri when she visited the province at the weekend.

Aceh police spokesman Sad Harunantyo told Reuters on Tuesday the five were freed on Monday afternoon and were traumatised by their experience. Police said they had been seized on Sunday.

Abu Pausi, a spokesman for the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), said the rebels had met the five, but denied they had kidnapped them. "We didn't detain them. It was only a courtesy call because one of them is our teacher," he said.

Police said earlier the five were in the Krueng Sabe district about 150 km south of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, when their vehicle disappeared late on Sunday. They were among hand-picked community leaders who met Megawati on Saturday in Banda Aceh. Her visit was aimed at curbing separatist tension and growing violence in the resource-rich province.

"If it was only a discussion why did they [the rebels] keep their car?... We view this as an abduction," said Harunantyo, speaking by telephone from Banda Aceh, 1,700 km (1,060 miles) northwest of Jakarta.

During her visit, Megawati apologised for past human rights abuses and urged all sides to stop decades of violence which has killed thousands. More than 1,500 people, mostly civilians, have died since January alone in an upsurge in violence in the province of four million people on the northwestern tip of Sumatra island.