Kidnap victim unharmed

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34046, 9 January 1976, Page 9

Kidnap victim unharmed

(X Z Press Assn—Copyright > PARIS. January 8. Police found a kidnapped French recording executive bound, gagged and chained hut unharmed in a cupboard of a country house last night. Authorities later reported, they had captured five mem-; bers of the kidnap gang, including its leader. The police said none of the $2.65m ransom demanded bv the abductors had been paid.! Louis Hazan. rhe 54-year-old chief executive of Phonogram, a subsidiary of the giant Philips group and France’s largest record company. was kidnapped from a company board meeting on New Year's Eve by six men posing as musicians. Thex took him out in broad dayJight in a large wicker basket . Seven men originally were reported to be in on the operation, all participating in, the abduction. Police saidi after Hazan’s release, however. that 11 people were,, involved — six who kidnapped Hazan. three whoi guarded him, the leader, and his brother. The six still were at large.j Police said they found the, country house where Hazan was hidden by tracing ai, 'telephone number found in Ithe trouser cuff of a suspect seized earlier in the day near i Paris. I The man believed to be the ; gang leader was arrested last i night at his parents’ apart- I ment in a middle-class hous- i ing development near Versailles. He was identified i as Hugo Brunini. aged 35. a i French-Italian and director of an office-cleaning company ! engaged by Phonogram. | Another suspect captured < was identified as Bruini’s 1 brother. He was seized at Orly Airport while preparing i to fly to Italy. I The break in the case came 1

lon Tuesday night when j police, acting under tough new anti-kidnap regulation-, 'seized two gang members as ; they arrived at a ransom rendezvous in central Paris. I They were identified as , solidly built men in their thirties with minor criminal : records. , A third gang member was I seized yestei day morning, and in his cuffs police found 'the telephone number that Ted them to a walled country house in the town of Tremi ley Les Villages. about 00 miles west of Paris. , Police said thex had to 'scale the wall to get into the grounds and as they came in two men who were guard ing Hazan fled. They are still at large. Police said thev finally ' found Hazan in a large. I sound-proofed kitchen cup- | board, very shaken but unhurt. They said he had Ixeen | brought to the house only a I short time before. Talking to reporters later in his apartment, the executive said he had been “kept I in the dark all the time, with ia hood oxer my face and rnv eyes taped down with sticky | tape.” i He added he was “very iwell treated and the gang I gave me regular meals and Itook me twice daily to the | toilet. They also gave me 'medicine for a stomach ailiment.” During Kazan's captivitx. police had suggested the kid napping may have been staged as part of an involved protection racket. The kidnappers wore a mask in the boardroom, evidently fearing recognition by members. The speculation drew indignant denials from the company, and subsequent identification of the gang leader with a company employed by Phonogram would explain why he may have worn a mask. Police alleged that Brunini recruited the gang by offering them about $90,000 each for the job.