More ransom demands for Belgian tycoon

Press, 27 January 1978, Page 5

More ransom demands for Belgian tycoon

NZPA-Reuter Paris The French police are: keeping an open mind about! five rival telephone calls —' including two linked to the! Baader-Meinhof guerrillas — claiming to represent the! kidnappers of Baronil Edouard-Jean Empain, the. Belgian millionaire seized ini, Paris on Monday. None of the callers top news organisations provided; evidence that the baron was i alive, or laid down detailed, ransom demands. The police,< said that without this proof! 1 there was no certainty that! any of the calls was authen-l! tic.’ li The most recent cal! wasp from a man who spoke fal-H tering French mixed withit German and claimed to rep-ji resent the "Proletarian Rev-! olutionarv Front.” (

He demanded freedom for , two convicted Baader-Me!n-jhof guerrillas, Irmgard Moeljler and Rolf Pohle, and for a Baade r-Meinhof lawyer. ! Klaus Croissant, who is now awaiting trial in West GerImany on charges of aiding [the group. | An earlier caller, claiming Ito speak for the "Armed Nuicleus for Popular Autoi nomy” (N.A.P.A.P.), a ; French Maoist group, said the baron would be killed . unless three Leftist prisoners, including Moeller and I Pohle, were freed. But a com tunique from ■ N.A.P.A.P., mailed to a Leftlist Paris newspaper generally well-informed about extremist groups, disclaimed an involvement in the kidnapping. Two of the other calls came from self-styled “pro-

fessional” criminals demanding ransoms of up to 100 million francs (S23M) and the fifth from a militant Right-wing Flemish organisation.