Elise Andre (photo: Interpol), click on image to view larger
Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – Elise, a three-year-old who was kidnapped Friday in Arles, southern France, as she returned from school with her father, is still being sought by Interpol with police in France, Switzerland and Russia. TSR carries a headline, “confusion reigns,” with Russian authorities saying the girl is not, to their knowledge, in Russia, after they were reported by Russian media over the weekend as saying she was there.
Le Monde in France cites Russian media as saying the girl was there, with false papers. There are reports, unconfirmed, that a small girl, two men and a woman flew from Geneva, Switzerland to Moscow, Russia.
Elise is the daughter of a French father and Russian mother whose acrimonious divorce in 2007 resulted in both of them being given custody of the child in their respective countries. The mother, Irina Belenkaya, took the child from France to Russia but the father, Jean-Michel André, was able to get her back and an international arrest warrant was put out for the mother.
The girl was kidnapped by two men and a woman as she and her father walked home.
News story, GenevaLunch, 23 March 2009.
Filed under: Society
Tags: Arles, Elise, France, Geneva, Interpol, Irina Belenkaya, Jean-Michel Andre, kidnapping, Montpelier, Moscow, Russia
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One Response to “Kidnapped Elise, 3.5 years: Switzerland part of trail”
April 14th, 2009 at 10:44 am
[...] and the father re-united with his daughter. The couple divorced when the girl was a year old. The news made headlines in Switzerland, with fears that the mother had flown with the girl from Geneva to Russia; as a Russian citizen she [...]