Diego Reportedly Released

Kidnapped Mexican former presidential candidate Diego Fernandez de Cevallos was set free early Saturday, the daily El Universal reported on its front page, a claim the government has yet to confirm.

Fernandez de Cevallos, who was kidnapped in May, was released early Saturday and is in good health and at home, the unnamed relatives told the newspaper, giving no further details.

But neither the family nor government officials have publicly confirmed the release.

"We know nothing" about the alleged release, an official with the federal prosecutor's office told AFP.

"We can neither confirm nor deny the report," added an official with the office of Federal Security.

Other news outlets, also citing unnamed relatives, say that the politician is still being held hostage.

In October El Universal reported that the politician's family paid 20 million dollars ransom, and that his abductors agreed to release him in early November. The family neither confirmed nor denied the report.

Fernandez de Cevallos vanished on May 15 after he had driven to his ranch in the central Mexican state of Queretaro.

A prominent member of the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN), Fernandez de Cevallos, 69, ran for president in 1994.

A brash, cigar-chomping candidate, he finished second in the election, losing to former president Ernesto Zedillo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Fernandez de Cevallos remained a key player in the PAN, and is close to President Felipe Calderon, also a PAN member. Currently he is a partner in a law firm with Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont.

Neither the politician's family nor the president have issued any statements on his alleged release.

The government launched a massive manhunt soon after Fernandez de Cevallos was kidnapped, but relatives asked them to call it off so they could negotiate with the abductors.

It is unclear who snatched the politician.

The kidnapping was at first blamed on leftist guerrillas, but the small Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), which operates sporadically in southern Mexico, issued a statement explicitly rejecting any role in the abduction.