Kidnapped politician freed

MEXICO CITY (AP):

A FORMER Mexican presidential candidate was freed Monday, seven months after his kidnapping, telling reporters outside his Mexico City home that he is well and forgives his captors.

Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, a top Mexican political power broker who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1994, gave no details about his abductors in what was the highest-profile and most brazen kidnapping in Mexico's recent history.

"As far as the kidnappers are concerned, as a man of faith I have forgiven (them)," he said, looking fit as he stood in a grey sweatshirt and pants outside his luxurious Mexico City home. "As a citizen, I think that the authorities have a task to do, but without abuses."

In a statement, President Felipe Calderon, welcomed the freeing of Fernandez de Cevallos, a leading member of Calderon's conservative National Action Party, and pledged that prosecutors were working to detain the kidnappers.

The national party, known as PAN, issued a statement calling the seven-month kidnapping "a period of anguish and worry," and called on the government to investigate and punish those responsible "with the ultimate consequences."