Woman taken hostage by suspected killers of Spanish policeman 03/12/2007 00:00

Woman tied up and dumped north of Capbreton

BORDEAUX, 3 December 2007

A woman was taken hostage by suspected Basque separatists who shot dead a Spanish policeman in southern France Saturday, and released unharmed later 160 kilometres (100 miles) away,French police said.

In Paris an official in the prosecutions office said the woman and her car had been hijacked by two men in the centre of Capbreton, some 60 kilometres from the Spanish border, where the Spanish policeman was killed and a colleague badly wounded.

She was dumped later not far from the city of Bordeaux, north of Capbreton, on the edge of a wood, the official said.

Police in Bordeaux said she had been left tied up near the town of Saucats while the kidnappers drove off, but managed to free herself and reach the nearest police station.
  
An alert was out for the woman's car, a grey Volkswagen Golf.

(copyright AFP 2007)