WORLD : Kidnaped Italian Magnate Freed
Anti-terrorist police freed coffee retailing magnate Dante Belardinelli today, five days after a spectacular gun battle with his kidnapers on a superhighway near Rome.
A patrol of the special anti-terrorist police squad known as Leatherheads found Belardinelli, 65, blindfolded and chained in a small tent inside a farmhouse in a barren, hilly area 60 miles northeast of Rome.
In a nearby farmhouse, police arrested Sardinian shepherd Constantino Pintore, 36.
A gang of Sardinian kidnapers seized Belardinelli near Florence May 30.
At a news conference in Rome, the coffee magnate appeared tired but otherwise in good condition. His ears, from which the bandits clipped two fragments that they sent to his family July 23 with a demand for $3.7 million in ransom within a week, were scabbed but not infected.
On Saturday, the anti-terrorist agents ambushed four members of the kidnap gang on the superhighway bypassing Rome as the bandits arrived for an arranged rendezvous to collect ransom from family representatives.
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