Kidnapers Release Former Prime Minister of Belgium

Kidnapers released former Prime Minister Paul Vanden Boeynants and he returned home “safe and sound” today after a month in captivity, the Justice Ministry said.

Unconfirmed reports said the family of Vanden Boeynants, a wealthy businessman, paid a ransom of as much as $5.1 million.

The 69-year-old Christian Democrat was freed late Monday near the railway station in Tournai and took a cab to his Brussels home 50 miles away, said Brussels Deputy Prosecutor Andre Vandoran.

There was no immediate explanation of where or under what conditions he had spent the month. The Justice Ministry said he will hold a news conference in the next day or two.

Investigators said they questioned Vanden Boeynants, whose career has been tainted by scandal, and are satisfied that he was kidnaped.

A group calling itself the Socialist Revolutionary Brigade had said it kidnaped him, and demanded a $790,000 ransom, two-thirds of which was to be distributed to the needy. But the Brussels daily Le Soir reported today that the family paid between $2.5 million and $5.1 million to the abductors Monday and suggested the Brigade is nothing more than a group of common criminals.