The World - News from Jan. 25, 1989
The kidnapers of former Belgian Prime Minister Paul Vanden Boeynants sent his national identity card to a daily newspaper in Brussels with a hand-written pledge by him to pay a substantial sum to the poor. A group calling itself the Socialist Revolutionary Brigade said in an accompanying note to the Le Soir newspaper that the 69-year-old Christian Democrat will be freed after a $750,000 ransom has been paid. Vanden Boeynants, who served as prime minister from 1966-68 and 1978-79, pledged in a separate hand-written note to pay a substantial sum to institutions for the destitute within six weeks of being freed.
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