Is there a way to turn-off character escaping when using c:set ?

I'm processing an XML file and trying to get the value stored in the ProductURL attribute of a node.
   
  I'm doing this:
  <c:set var="value"><x:out select="@ProductURL"/></c:set>
   
  When I output the value of @ProductURL , with just x:out, I get this:

  http://www.something.com?qs1=some_value&qs2=another_value
(Notice how the ampersand is not escaped in the above URL generated from x:out)
  
But when I do
<c:redirect url="${value}"/> it is not working properly because , the URL stored inside value has escaped ampersands and c:redirect 
requires unescaped ampersands
  
I could do this to get the unescaped URL:
<c:out value="${value}" escapeXml="false"/>
   
  But, I need the unescaped url in a variable so that it can be added to the url attribute of
<c:redirect url="${value}"/>
   
   

 			
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