BAGHDAD, Jan. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- A French hostage kidnapped in Baghdad last month was released on Saturday, an Interior ministry source said on Sunday.

    "The kidnappers of Bernard Planche released him at about 2:00 p.m. (1100 GMT) near a U.S. checkpoint in Abu Ghraib area in western Baghdad," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    The source said he is not sure whether the kidnappers, who drove a vehicle, released Planche after they saw the checkpoint and fled or they bought him premeditatedly near the checkpoint to release him.

    Planche, 52, was kidnapped by a group of militants calling themselves the Battalion of the Lookout for Iraq on Dec. 5 from his home in Baghdad's western Mansur district.

    On Dec. 28, the Arabic al-Arabiyah TV channel aired a videotape showing Planche sitting on his knees with two gunmen behind him.

    The group threatened to kill him if the French government did not "end its illegitimate presence in Iraq."

    About two hundred foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in March 2003. Dozens of the hostages were killed. Enditem