Kidnappers’ motive puzzles police

Press, 31 October 1977, Page 8

Kidnappers’ motive puzzles police

NZPA-Reuter Amsterdam A Dutch millionaire, Mr Maurits Caransa, has begun his third day in captivity with the identity and motives of his kidnappers still a mystery. Despite a number of phone calls demanding the release of a West German urban guerrilla held in the Netherlands, the police still had no firm evidence to link Mr Caransa’s abductors with the kidnappers of the murdered West German industrial i s t , Hanns-Martin Schleyer. “At the moment, we are still considering it a purely criminal affair,” an Amsterdam police spokesman said. Mr Caransa, a Jewish property tycoon, was seized in an Amsterdam square early on Friday morning. He was last seen just after 1 a.m. struggling with his attackers who bundled him into a red •car and drove off.

The police said that the hunt for him had been cbm-i plicated by a stream of; anonymous calls to Dutch; newspapers in Dutch and I German from people claim-1 ;ing to be the kidnappers. , I The police said that all; ithe calls were being treated; on their merits by a team of 40 investigators, but there were still no firm leads. Mr Caransa, who is 61. is one of the Netherlands’ richest men and several of the anonymous callers demanded ransom money in exchange for his release. Other callers demanded the release of the West German urban guerrilla. Knut Filkerts, a member of the Red Army Faction arrested after a gun battle in Utrecht last month in which he shot dead a policeman. Mr Hans Knoop. ] spokesman for the kidnapped businessman’s fam(ily. said he had been asked

.by the police to make no i further announcements to the press. The request came after Mr Knoop, a journalist friend and bridge' partner of Mr Caransa, made known tha* the family had turned down a police ' request to allow their telephone to be tapped. The Dutch Government has so far left the affair in the hands of the Amsterdam police, but a spokesman said that the Justice Ministry in • the Hague would take charge if it emerged that the J kidnapping was a political lone. 1 “Maup” Caransa. who grew' up in near-poverty and survived the Nazi deportations of Dutch Jews during World War 11, founded his fortune in the 1950 s property market. He was known more for his enthusiastic backing of the top soccer team. Ajax, than for any political controversy.