BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Former Prime Minister Paul Vanden Boeynants, who was kidnapped a month ago, was freed after his family paid a high ransom, the public prosecutor's office said Tuesday.
Vanden Boeynants, 69, was set free by his abductors Monday night in Tournai, 46 miles southwest of Brussels near the French border. He took a taxi home and called police.
A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said 'a ransom of tens of millions of francs' (hundreds of thousands of dollars) had been paid for Vanden Boeynants' release. The spokesman did not elaborate.
Brussels daily Le Soir said in its afternoon edition that the family had paid 70 million francs, or $1.79 million.
Vanden Boeynants was attacked by three men on the night of Jan. 14 as he parked his car in the garage of his suburban apartment. The abductors pulled a hood over his head and took him away in a car, the spokesman said.
His family called police when he failed to show up hours after he was due home. In the garage officers found his car, a shoe, his pipe and his hearing aid.
The same night the previously unknown Socialist Revolutionary Brigade claimed the abduction of Vanden Boeynants in telephone calls to Belgian news media, and in letters to the media it later demanded a ransom of 30 million francs, or $770,000, with two-thirds of the amount distributed to the poor.
Ten days after the abduction the group sent another letter to Le Soir containing Vanden Boeynants' identity card and a handwritten note in which he said he had committed himself to supplying aid to institutions caring for the most needy people within six weeks after his release.
On Jan. 31, Vanden Boeynants' son, Christian, in an emotional appeal on Belgian radio and television, said the family had not received proof that his father was still alive and urged the abductors to contact him directly.
Investigators suspect Vanden Boeynants was held in northern France. The spokesman said he was handcuffed on a bed and guarded by a couple of men wearing hoods but that he had not been further ill-treated.
Vanden Boeynants told investigators he was blindfolded Monday night and driven in a car for several hours before being released near the railway station of Tournai. A policeman was on guard duty Tuesday at the front door to the apartment building where Vanden Boeynants lives.
Reporters, photographers and television cameramen had assembled in front of the building, but could catch only a vague glimpse of Vanden Boeynants behind a window of his sixth-floor apartment. Vanden Boeynants allowed one woman photographer to come in briefly to take pictures.
After leaving the house she told colleagues Vanden Boeynants looked 'exhausted, had a beard and wore dark glasses.'
Christian Vanden Boeynants' son came outside briefly to tell reporters, 'My father will not make a statement today because he is too tired.'
Vanden Boeynants was prime minister from 1966 to 1968 and again for a few months late in 1978 and early 1979. He also was defense minister for several years.
He quit national politics in 1985 but remained a member of the Brussels Town Council. He also was a wealthy businessman, owning a meat processing plant and having interests in other companies as well.
