A BUSINESSMAN accused of abducting two men and threatening to kill them unless they gave him £600,000 walked free from court after he was cleared yesterday.

Prosecutors said Volker Kappler had ordered a "professional gang of ruthless armed men" to abduct Hartlepool businessmen John Wood and David Langthorne, in March 2003.

But, after more than five hours of deliberation, a jury of eight men and four women at Leeds Crown Court cleared the German national of all the charges he faced.

He was found not guilty of two counts of kidnap and two counts of blackmail.

Yesterday's verdicts came after a month-long retrial.

Mr Kappler, 41, was originally jailed in 2003 and sentenced to ten years in prison after he was convicted by a jury at Teesside Crown Court.

But a retrial was ordered earlier this year after appeal court judges heard fresh evidence had cast doubt on the independence of one of the witnesses in the original trial.

Mr Kappler has always denied any involvement in the abduction of Mr Wood and Mr Langthorne.

The retrial heard prosecutors describe how the two men were snatched in Hartlepool on March 14, 2003, and driven in the back of a van to North Wales, where they were taken to Mr Kappler's Superflexibles plastics factory in a village on the outskirts of Mold.

There, according to the prosecution, Mr Kappler ordered them to pay £600,000 he claimed was owed to him by one of their business associates, Paul Thompson.

But, in the witness box, Mr Kappler described the suggestion he had anything to do with the incident as "nonsense".

He claimed he was at home with his wife at the time.

He also claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy involving various people, including the two men allegedly abducted and members of Hartlepool police.

Judge Scott Wolstenholme closed the proceedings, saying Mr Kappler, from Llanfairtalhaiarn, near Conwy, Wales, was free to leave the court.