CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Ehud Avni, an Israeli businessman kidnapped at gunpoint last week in Nigeria, has been freed.

Avni, 60, was nabbed in a parking lot in the Nigerian port city of Harcourt. At one point, his abductors demanded a $12 million ransom fee from Gilmore Engineering, the company he works for.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Nigeria's largest terror group, offered to negotiate Avni's release.

"We may assist the Israeli government in locating and negotiating the release of the hostage if requested to do so through its ambassador," read a statement by the group.

Avni's family was greatly relieved with news of his release.

"We're ecstatic. We got dad back [and] this doesn't happen every day," his daughter told YNet news. "They just let him go around 1:30 a.m.," she said.

Nigerian police spokeswoman Rita Inoma-Abbey said authorities arrested Avni's driver on suspicion that he aided the kidnappers.

Source: YNet news