French police have arrested a Yugoslav on suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping of former Belgian prime minister Paul Vanden Boeynants, police sources said Thursday.
They said Basri Bajrami, a Belgian resident, was found in possession of 150,000 Swiss francs in 1,000-franc notes.The serial numbers of the bills were being checked against numbers of notes in a ransom of up to $2.5 million paid for the 69-year-old former prime minister's release Monday. Police said Bajrami would be taken before a magistrate in Metz, near the Luxembourg border, later Thursday.
Vanden Boeynants was kidnapped in the garage of his Brussels home on Jan. 14 and held for a month. The Christian Democrat politician said he was kept chained, half-naked and hooded by his kidnappers.