Asia-Pacific

Kidnappers promise to free Mexican high official

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-10-15 10:00

MEXICO CITY - Kidnappers have promised to free Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, former Mexican presidential candidate, after his family paid $20 million in ransom, a local newspaper reported Thursday.

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Fernandez, who was kidnapped five months ago, will be freed next month, the El Universal newspaper reported.

Fernandez is sick and depressed but in a "stable condition," it added.

Fernandez has been held since May 14, when he was snatched from his ranch in the central Mexican state of Queretaro. Investigators found signs of a violent struggle at the scene.

Later, his kidnappers posted a picture on Twitter showing him blindfolded and bare-chested, with a sheet of plastic in the background.

Fernandez is the highest-profile victim of abduction in Mexico. Born in 1941, he was a presidential candidate representing the conservative National Action Party in the 1994 election but lost it.