Word: caransa
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Maurits ("Maupie") Caransa, 61, had been playing bridge with friends all evening at the Continental Club in the heart of Amsterdam. As the Dutch-Jewish millionaire businessman left the hotel shortly after 1 a.m. last Friday, he was seized by armed men, who hustled him into a waiting red sedan and sped away. Nine hours later an anonymous caller, speaking in German, telephoned the daily Het Parool with the message that Dutch police had been expecting and dreading: "This is the Red Army Faction. We have Caransa. You will hear from...
...subsequent call demanded the abdication of Queen Juliana as ransom for Caransa. The caller also insisted on the release of West German Terrorist Knut Folkerts from a Maastricht prison cell in southern Holland. Police speculated that Caransa's captors might belong to the same gang of anarchists that kidnaped West German Industrialist Hanns-Mar-tin Schleyer in early September. Schley-er's body was found in the trunk of a car in Mulhouse, France, not far from the German border two weeks ago, shortly after West German commandos staged their daring rescue raid on a skyjacked Lufthansa...
...even, as things turned out, an affable Dutchman who had nothing to do with the high drama of the week before. The son of an Amsterdam oil and coal dealer, Caransa made his fortune by trading military surplus goods after World War II. Later he switched to real estate, and in time came to own several of the city's finest hotels. To his friends the warmhearted Caransa is known as a bridge enthusiast, a physical fitness addict, and a racing fan. To his kidnapers he may have seemed a suitable target because 1) he is one of Holland...