September 16, 2013

Source: CNN and BBC

A gunman dressed in all black fired shots Monday inside the U.S. Navy Yard, injuring at least 10 people, according to the Navy and a Washington police spokesman.

The U.S. Navy tweeted there are “several confirmed injuries with reports of fatalities.”

The injured included a Washington, D.C., police officer who has been hospitalized, and another law officer not affiliated with the city force, said Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Chris Kelly.

The incident occurred at 8:20 a.m. when several shots were fired inside the headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command in southeast Washington, D.C. An “active shooter” remained inside the building, the Navy said.

Kelly described the suspect as an adult male, about 6 feet tall with a bald head and medium complexion, dressed in a black top and black jeans.

The Navy confirmed police had entered an office building in search of a gunman, after shots were fired at 08:20 local time (13:20 GMT).

Local news agencies said as many as three people were wounded, including one police officer.

Personnel at the yard have been ordered to “shelter in place”, the Navy said.

The US Navy said shots were reported to have been fired at the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters at the yard in south-east Washington DC.

Cmdr Tim Juris was on the fourth floor of the building when he heard shots, he told the BBC.

“It sounded like a tap gun as opposed to a real gun,” he said.

Dozens of emergency vehicles have converged on the site, and helicopters have been flying overhead.

President Barack Obama has been briefed on the matter by top officials and has directed federal agencies to co-ordinate their response efforts.

As many as 3,000 people work at the command, which engineers, purchases, builds and maintains ships and submarines for the Navy.

The Washington Navy Yard is the US Navy’s oldest shore installation, first opened in the early 19th Century, according to the Navy.

September 16, 2013

Here you will find a small collection of press and media coverage regarding International Parental Child Abduction, Child Recovery- involving ABP World Group Ltd.

Al Jazeera: 

Are parental child abductions going unpunished? Canadian and U.S. data suggest most international child abductions are committed by a family member. Typically, the parent left behind has sole custody and believes they have legal protection when their kids are taken abroad. Instead, they find themselves stuck in a slow and expensive bureaucratic system desperately searching for help.

In this episode of The Stream, we speak to:

Stephen Watkins @iCHAPEAU_Law

Founder of iCHAPEAU

September 23 September 2013

Source: Theguardian.com

Last year alone, more than 500 children were abducted from the UK by one of their parents. We speak to some of the mothers and fathers left behind

Louise Monaghan with her daughter, May, in Cyprus: ‘We’ll change our names, move. If you want to get lost, you can.’ Photograph: Eirini Vourloumis for the Guardian

When Louise Monaghan rang her former husband’s phone, her worst fears were confirmed: it went straight to an international ring tone. He had fled the country with their six-year-old daughter, May. The police in Cyprus, where Louise lived, didn’t seem overly interested; it was just another domestic that would sort itself out. Nor did the government back home in Ireland: no, they couldn’t arrange an emergency passport for May without her father’s signature. Louise protested that this was the man who had absconded with her daughter. Sorry, she was told, rules are rules.

She had been divorced from Mostafa for less than a year. During their seven-year relationship, he regularly beat her; on one occasion, when he punched her unconscious, he thought he had killed her. Eventually, she found the courage to press charges, and then begged the judge for leniency; Mostafa had told her he would have her and May killed if he went to prison. He was given a suspended sentence, and his access to May continued, three days a week, three hours a day. Louise says May hated her time with him. She had panic attacks and developed trichotillomania, a compulsion to pull out your own hair. “She had a big bald spot.”

After they divorced, he stalked Louise, hiding in bushes beneath her apartment, following her in his car, terrifying her. She warned her daughter as gently as she could. She never used the word kidnap, nor did she suggest that May’s father was a bad man, but she did say there was one thing her father wasn’t allowed to do. “I told her time and time again, if your father ever takes you to an airport or a ferry, please scream and shout and go to the nearest adult and say, can you please call my mama? She knew my number off by heart. We practised it all the time. So when he took her, I thought, please God, do what I said.”

The phone continued to ring out. Eventually, Mostafa answered and calmly told her they were about to cross the border into war-torn Syria, where he was from. “I said, ‘Do you have May?’ and he said, ‘Of course I have May. We’re going to live in Syria.’ I said, ‘Can I speak to her?’ When she came on the phone, she was so distraught I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. I said, ‘May, speak slowly, where have you been?’ And she said, ‘In a big shopping mall, Mummy.’ I said, ‘May, were there planes there?’ And she started crying and saying, ‘Yes, Mama.’”

The story that followed is the stuff of thrillers. Indeed, Louise’s book,Stolen: Escape From Syria, is being made into a film. But there is nothing thrilling about the way she recounts it. She crossed a heavily guarded Syrian border, fooled Mostafa into thinking she still loved him, was beaten, starved and held captive by him, betrayed by the people-smugglers she had paid to rescue them, and then escaped with her daughter across the mountains into Lebanon through bomb attacks and sniper fire.

Two years on, Louise is back living in Cyprus. May is at school and life is returning to a kind of normality. We meet in Dublin, at her sister Mandy’s home. May is a pretty eight-year-old with long, dark hair and an uncertain smile. I look at her and find it hard to comprehend what she has been through. Perhaps the only giveaway is her silence.

Louise is undergoing intense psychotherapy. She talks about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child, how introverted she became, the death of her mother in a car crash, her first marriage to a man who was more friend than lover. She is trying to put things into context, she says, explaining how she ended up with a man like Mostafa.

In her late 20s, she left Ireland for Cyprus and became a successful travel sales consultant, before setting up a hair salon. She drove two cars, had a good income and a great circle of friends. Then she met Mostafa. “I don’t like to say his name,” she says quietly. She seems embarrassed, ashamed even, that she fell in love with him.

“He was a good-looking guy, let’s be honest about it,” Mandy says as her sister struggles. “He came over from Cyprus to Ireland, to the local pub, and you should have seen the carry-on from my friends.”

“Even after the kidnapping, friends said to me, ‘It’s such a shame, because he was a gorgeous-looking man,’” Louise says.

From the start Mostafa was controlling, but she told herself she was lucky to have a man who cared for her so passionately. Yes, she was aware that they came from very different cultures – she was Irish Catholic, he was Syrian Sunni Muslim – but that wasn’t going to get in the way of love. “Then I married him and I became his property.”

After the abduction, Mandy flew to Cyprus to be with Louise and work out a rescue plan. They flew to southern Turkey and drove to Hatay, a province bordering Syria, where Louise put on her hijab and left Mandy. On 12 September 2011, five days after Mostafa had abducted May, she walked into Syria, passing thousands of people fleeing in the opposite direction. When Louise was reunited with May, she learned her daughter had been beaten on to the plane. “On her arms, her thighs. She still had bruises where he grabbed her arms.”

Louise and May spent five weeks in Syria. Often, Mostafa would leave her locked in a dark room and take May with him. “I presume it was to see his parents. I think he did it to torture me, to show me he was the boss. I thought I’d never see her again.”

She lost a stone. Mandy says that when they came back to Ireland, May looked even worse than her mother. “She had these terrible black rings under her eyes.” And now? “She doesn’t like talking about it. She very rarely mentions it. She might twitch at something.” Despite this, Louise says May told her therapist she still loves her father.

“You know what?” Mandy says, out of nowhere. “I haven’t read the book.” She’s happily buttering a piece of toast in the kitchen, and the next second is in floods of tears. “It’s just too horrific. I hate to think they went through all that.” Now Louise is crying, too.

A month after Louise and May returned home, Mostafa was apprehended trying to escape Syria over the Turkish border. He was jailed for two weeks and was due to be extradited to Cyprus on charges of abduction. But Syria was mid-collapse, and he was let go. There is currently an international warrant for his arrest.

It is almost impossible to get accurate statistics on parental child abduction. Last year, Foreign and Commonwealth Office statisticsrevealed that there had been an 88% increase in the number of parental child abduction cases it had dealt with in less than a decade – from 272 in 2003/4 to 512 in 2011/12. These figures almost certainly understate the problem because they are based only on official police investigations. Although the common perception is that more men than women abduct children, in 2011 Reunite, a charity that supports victims of international parental child abduction, found that 70% of parental abductions in the UK were by women, most of whom had followed their partner to the UK and returned home when the relationship soured.

Neil Winnington: ‘All I can do is leave a trail for her online – films, songs, blogs, poems – and hope she follows it.’ Photograph: Shaw + Shaw for the Guardian

If you look on Myspace, there is a beautiful video of a red-haired two-year-old at the seaside, eating ice-cream, bouncing on a trampoline, making sandcastles with her father. The film was made in May 2008, two months before Neil Winnington’s daughter Emily was taken to Russia by her mother. He was assured they would return to Wrexham after the holiday, but he didn’t believe her. After all, Neil claims, she had previously threatened to take Emily back to Russia for good, saying that if he didn’t give her half his earnings, she would never allow him to visit. “She had said she’d go to the Russian courts and have my name removed from the birth certificate. Emily wouldn’t even know she had a British father.”

Neil doesn’t have a clue what Emily looks like today, or where she’s living: “25 September is five years to the day since I saw her.” He assumes she wouldn’t recognise him. All he can do, he says, is leave a trail for her online, in the form of films, songs, blogs, poems and photos, and hope that one days she follows it.

As with most cases of abduction, Neil’s story is one-sided. His former wife (he doesn’t say her name; she is “Emily’s mother”) is unavailable for comment because she has disappeared; he assumes they are both still in Russia, but doesn’t know. The British government hasn’t been much help either, he says: “Three years ago, the Christmas and birthday presents all started coming back with ‘incorrect address’ marked on them. When the cutbacks started to bite at the Foreign Office, any attempt to contact Emily was stopped. When they did send somebody for a consular visit, Emily’s mum refused to let them even take photographs for me.”

Although Russia has just signed up to the 1996 Hague convention, which states that abducted children should be returned to their habitual country of residence, it will consider only retrospective cases that occurred within the previous year. “So the estimated 150 children, including Emily, who were abducted to Russia prior to that will get no help,” Neil says. He doesn’t know who, or where, to turn to now.

Neil says it’s ironic, really. He has travelled all over the world as a TV producer, but met Emily’s mother in Birkenhead, just a few miles from his parents’ home. She returned to Russia to give birth to Emily, and that’s when things started to go wrong. “I think she had postnatal depression and her mother started sowing seeds of doubt.” The marriage fell apart when he discovered she had been having an affair.

After Emily was taken, Neil stopped working. He got into £20,000-worth of debt, lost his home and car, and stopped going out. “I had a complete nervous breakdown. To be honest, I’ve just learned to control it. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. Even if Emily came back tomorrow… I’ve spoken to other parents: they expect their children to be snatched again. It never, ever leaves you.” His speech is broken. “I was a recluse for two years. I couldn’t face seeing children. If a child cries – even to this day, in a supermarket – it brings me to tears.”

Like the other parents I speak to, Neil knows his abduction statistics by heart. “In 2011, Reunite received calls about 512 different cases, involving 700-plus children. And the numbers are rising each year. It was 300 the year Emily was abducted.”

Why is the number rising? “If I’m blunt about it, the growing media and political antipathy towards foreigners is driving a lot of people apart. It gave Emily’s mother ammunition to say they weren’t wanted here.” Was there any truth in that? “There are always people who’ll look for a reason.”

He says he is in a slightly better state now. He has just started a new job, is campaigning for Reunite, and has convinced himself that one day Emily will turn up on his doorstep.

Has he been in a relationship? “I’m staying single for the rest of my life,” he says forcefully. “It would be a betrayal of Emily. If she came back and found me with another family, I don’t think I could forgive myself.” But he could have another family and still love her? “No, because she is what I always wanted. If I’d had another family, it would have meant that I’d stopped fighting.”

Catherine Meyer: ‘My boys are always small in my dreams. They’re with me and either taken away or in danger.’ Photograph: Lydia Goldblatt for the Guardian

On the surface, Catherine Meyer says life couldn’t be better. She is married to a wonderful man (Christopher Meyer, the former ambassador to Germany and Washington), she has two grown-up boys of whom she is hugely proud and a successful career in the City behind her – and yet the past still haunts her.

It is 19 years since her two sons, Alexander and Constantin, then nine and seven, were taken by her former husband. Strictly speaking, they were not abducted: they were wrongfully retained. The boys had gone to visit their father in Germany, and he refused to let them return.

We meet at Catherine’s beautiful London town house, which is currently being overhauled; the one room that is operational serves as the office from which she runs Pact, a charity she set up to help victims of abduction. Like Louise Monaghan, she has written a book about her experience, called They Are My Children, Too. Left-behind parents often feel the need to chronicle their experience, partly for themselves and partly in the hope that their children will be able to make sense of it one day.

A slight, elegant woman, Catherine looks both much younger, and occasionally older, than her 60 years. She is in tears before her first sentence is out. Half-French, half-Russian, she grew up largely in Britain, and spent time in America and Africa. She was 29 and one of only three women working on London’s Stock Exchange when she went on a road trip to visit her sister in the south of France. At a service station, a man smiled at her. Then she saw him at another service station, and it turned out they were visiting the same place. “He was very good-looking, German, blond, blue eyes. He was a doctor, did something useful. I thought, wow!”

They moved to London and married. When he became homesick, she agreed to move to Germany for two years. They lived with his mother in the small town of Verden, near Bremen. Two years became seven, and Catherine decided she’d had enough. She returned to London in 1993, where she was awarded custody of the boys; the agreement was that they would spend the school holidays with their father, which is how it worked out, until the following year, when she received a 21-page letter from him. “He said, ‘It’s not me, it’s the children, they are begging to stay with me. I’m not doing this against you, I’m doing this to be nice to the children.’ He was already preparing his legal case. And the whole world crashes.”

As with Louise, every date is imprinted on Catherine’s mind. “I said, ‘If you don’t send them back on 28 August, I will consider this wrongful retention under article 3 of the Hague convention.’” Alexander and Constantin were made wards of court, and an order was made for them to return to the UK; but the local German court successfully argued that the children were victims of racism in Britain, and that the “children have decisively opposed such return”. Over the next 10 years, Catherine saw her children half a dozen times, for a few hours on each occasion; in all, she says, she spent 24 hours with them. She dedicated her life to their return. She spent more than £200,000 on lawyers, and lost everything. She explored every avenue, analysed 22 other cases of abduction in Germany, examined every inconsistency in the legal arguments. In 1997, four years after losing her children, she lobbied Christopher Meyer, then ambassador to Germany, for help. “He always says, ‘This poor woman came in to try to get some help, and I knew I couldn’t help her. So I did the second best thing and married her.’” She smiles.

She believes the boys became convinced that she had abandoned them. One day she took a plane to Germany and waited outside their school. When they saw her, they ran in the opposite direction and got into a car. “The first time I saw Alexander, at the second court hearing, he greeted me by hitting me.” She aims a punch at her own stomach to illustrate.

How did this change her? “I lost my job and by now I was weighing 45 kilos. I wasn’t eating and I couldn’t sleep because my hip bones were so painful, sticking out.” She looks into her coffee, then directly at me. “I used to be quite amusing, actually, when I was young. Now I cannot stay still – I have to be busy. That’s a sign I see in a lot of parents. They become workaholics, or depressives. I have two people who committed suicide, and one ended up in the loony bin. You can feel sorry for yourself and go deeper and deeper into yourself. Or you can work and work.”

The most painful loss, she says, was physical. “Touching them. Feeling them. I constantly had nightmares. Still have them. They are always small in dreams, they’re with me in London, and they’re either being taken away or they’re in danger.”

How did she win her case? She didn’t, she says: “There was an angel.” A man living near her boys in Germany heard her story and wrote to her. He got in touch with Alexander, told him his mother still loved him and was desperate to see him. He passed on her address. Aged 19, Alexander visited his mother in London for the first time in 10 years. Constantin followed soon after. “I was incredibly nervous. How will they react? What will they think of me? Shall I speak French, shall I speak English? We sat on the tube, looking at each other rather than saying anything.”

Alexander is now 28 and a maths PhD student in Berlin. Constantin is 26 and studying to be a doctor in Hamburg. They visit regularly. Do the boys consider they were abducted? “We don’t talk about this… Possibly not. They are boys, and boys tend to look forward rather than back.” Does she think they will want to talk about it? “Yes. With Alexander it has come up. We’ve had some conversations and he’s said he doesn’t really want to go there, but maybe one day he will.”

Alexander was nine when he was taken, just old enough for his mother to start to see who he might grow into. Constantin was still a baby in her eyes. “He was a gorgeous little blond boy when he left, and suddenly he’s a young man with hair on his arms. It’s difficult. You’ve missed 10 years of your child growing up, very formative years. We’re rebuilding.”

She attributes the dramatic increase in the number of parental abductions to an increase in international marriages, a greater number of divorces and the fact that today’s family courts are less clear cut when it comes to child custody; in the past, it was assumed they would stay with their mother. The biggest problem, she says, is lawyers with a financial interest in prolonging divorce conflict, and parents who think of their children as possessions. “The trouble is, parents think they have rights to their children. You produce them, they didn’t ask to be in the world, the only thing you do have is responsibility to raise them properly and give them the love they need.”

I ask if she is capable of feeling joy these days. “Seeing my children is wonderful. Christopher says my face lights up when I see them.” She pauses. “I used to say I’d like to just drill a hole in my head and take some of this stuff out, this anxiety, this hyperness.” She still feels that? “Oh, yes.”

Rachel Neustadt: ‘They don’t remember English any more. My son couldn’t remember how to say goodnight.’ Photograph: Lydia Goldblatt for the Guardian

Rachel Neustadt says she’s lucky. Then again, luck is relative. Nine months ago, her ex-husband abducted her two oldest boys, Daniel Jakob, seven, and Jonathan, five. We meet in early September, a few days before she is due to fly to Russia to fight in court for their return.

Six months after the boys were taken, in June 2013, Russia signed up to the 1996 Hague convention. The earlier 1980 convention had ruled that countries had to individually ratify with each other for a child to be returned to the country from which they were taken, but the 1996 model states that countries need only to have signed up for it to be applied. The old convention would not have helped Rachel; the new one should see her children return. Hers will be a test case, the first to use the new legislation for an abduction from the UK to Russia.

Rachel and Ilya met at a wedding in Vienna. They had much in common: both were orthodox Jews, with Belarusian family; both had been brought up in a number of countries and were economists. He was studying for a PhD, she was working for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. They married, had two boys and raised them bilingual, speaking English (she is American) and Russian. They married in Germany, lived in Switzerland, then moved to England. Over time, she says, Ilya became unreasonable and abusive. In what way? “Almost every way.”

In 2011, after eight years of marriage, Rachel decided enough was enough. She was pregnant with their third child when she filed for divorce. She says she tried to make the split as amicable as possible. Legally, she didn’t have to allow him to take the boys on holiday, but she wanted to normalise the relationship. He suggested taking the boys to see his brother in Russia. She knows that should have rung an alarm bell: he had not been back to Russia for two decades. He then suggested getting the boys a Russian passport because it was cheaper than a visa, and that meant they would be able to visit their cousins every year. “I went to the embassy and signed all the papers to get them Russian passports.” She shakes her head in disbelief. She gave the trip her blessing, and the boys never came back.

This is the most common circumstance in which children are abducted by a parent, during contact time. Astonishingly, Rachel says, if the left-behind parent has given the other parent permission to take a child on holiday, it is not even a crime; “wrongful retention” is a civil offence. As with most male abductors, Ilya has been helped by his mother; she has moved from Germany to Russia to help bring up the boys.

Why did he take them? “He said they’re his kids, he brought them to England, he can take them whenever he wants.”

He didn’t see the boys as their children? “Well, he’s always seen them as his possessions. He doesn’t really see them as humans with rights and feelings. He said we live in Russia now, and we don’t need anything else. The kids don’t need a mother, they don’t need you. I’m their mother and their father. He’s tried to coax me into bringing our third son to Russia to see his brothers, so he can abduct him, too.”

At first, Rachel says, Ilya allowed her a weekly phone call, but he would keep her waiting for hours, and then the calls tailed off. If she said anything personal or loving to the boys, the line would go dead. The last time she spoke to them, she felt they were no longer used to regular conversation. “They’ve lost a lot of their ability to communicate. They don’t remember English any more. Their father said to Jonathan, ‘Say goodnight to your mum in English’ and he couldn’t even remember how to say the words.”

The walls of her north London home are covered with mementoes of the boys – a crayoned drawing with the words “I like crackers” by Jonathan, pictures of the union and Israeli flags, a certificate Daniel Jakob won for a spelling competition, photographs of them dressed up as sword-wielding Normans.

Rachel is composed until I ask what such an experience does to a parent. She swallows between half-sentences and takes deep breaths. “Most mothers, when they put their kids to bed and they see them sleeping, they hover for a moment. Before you walk out of the room for the night, you tend to wait, because you know you’re going to miss them until morning. So it’s that feeling multiplied by 24 hours a day. I’m just waiting…” She is barely audible now. “It’s horrific.” Every parent I meet cries in the same way: mid-conversation, without warning, silently, uncontrollably.

The days are worse than the nights, Rachel says. “That’s when you’re constantly cleaning chins and tying shoes and doing homework. All the stuff you do every second with kids.” But she says the overwhelming feeling is not one of missing the boys: it is of panic that they might be damaged, and horror that she has failed to protect them.

She sleeps four hours a night, if she’s lucky, between 3am and 7am. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable calling it a night when I know if I did a couple more things I might be more successful in bringing them home.” How does she get through the days? “I’m very busy working for them. I don’t have much time. I try not to distract myself with emotions, because I have a job to do. Paperwork to file, phone calls to make. It is a full-time job. If people ask me, I say I’m a full-time student of international abduction law.” She allows herself a rare smile.

Has this changed her as a person? “Yes. In many ways, actually. My ex was unreasonable in so many ways, and I thought that if I just kept being reasonable, he’d come round. Now I think what I did was naive. I guess, in an abusive relationship, it’s called enabling behaviour. Ultimately, I realised it’s up to me to defend the interests of the family and not allow someone like him to destroy us.”

I ask if I can see the boys’ bedroom. “Sure,” she says. Her mother, who has come over from America to support her, is in there playing with her baby son, Meyer, and a toy bus. There is a double bed and a single bed. Rachel points to the double. “Daniel Jakob likes this bed because he rolls about in his sleep.”

“Yes, he does!’ his grandma says, laughing.

What have the past nine months been like for her, the boys’ grandmother? Her face collapses and tears roll down her cheeks; she ushers my tape recorder away.

We play with the bus, Rachel sings London Bridge to Meyer and calm is restored. Well, I say, hopefully the boys will be back soon. Rachel’s mother blinks back her tears. “They will be… they will be!” she says.

Back in Dublin, Louise Monaghan says that, while it is wonderful to have May back, the family are not yet at peace. After their escape, Mostafa rang her sister Mandy and promised he would track down Louise and May.

“Even now, not knowing where he is, you’re still living in danger, still sleeping with one eye open,” Mandy says.

Where do they think he is?

Mandy: “Hopefully he’s died. I know that’s not nice.”

Louise: “In my heart, I think he got out. He has family who love him in Dubai and Qatar.”

How does she feel when Mandy says she hopes he’s dead? “We’ve had that discussion. I have mixed feelings. My overriding feeling is I want peace. When I heard that he had been arrested and was being flown back to Cyprus, my biggest fear was that, if he was languishing in a Cypriot prison, I would have to get out of here because he would organise for me to be killed. I have no doubt about that.”

The family are planning a fresh start. Louise and May do not believe they are safe in Cyprus, nor Mandy and her family in Ireland. They will move together to a new country, as yet undecided. “New identity,” Louise says. “Change our appearance, change our names, move somewhere else, whatever. If you want to get lost, you can get lost.”

Just before going to press, I receive an email from Rachel Neustadt in Russia. While Ilya has argued in court that the boys are frightened of London and do not want to live with their mother, the court has ruled that they should be returned to the UK: a landmark decision. Ilya has 15 days to appeal. Rachel’s relief is palpable, as is her fear. “I wish I could hold my sons in my arms right now, but it is still unclear how to gain access to them. Today is Daniel Jakob’s half-birthday – he’s seven and a half. We have not reached the end of this nightmare, but today’s decision was crucial. I have no idea, nor do I want to imagine, how much longer this might take. I suspect we have a difficult road ahead of us.”

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ABP World Group Risk Management

September 25, 2013

Source: Daily Life

Nigel Brennan was held hostage in Somalia and later freed after his family paid a randsom. Photo: TIMBAUERPHOTO.COM

In 2008 my brother Nigel was abducted while working in Somalia alongside Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout. I picked up the phone and spoke to the kidnappers when they rang to deliver the first ransom message and so I fell into the role of next of kin negotiator (the NOK). After establishing who I was, and my relationship with Nigel, they demanded $US 1.5 million for his safe release. The situation still seems surreal.

Over time, and with the assistance of some wonderful local Queensland police negotiators, I was actively trained to take the calls. The AFP moved into my parents’ house and I was taught to negotiate with the kidnappers by responding to a series of ‘what if‘ mock phone calls in anticipation of a real call from the kidnappers.

Initially I was fearful of the calls coming in, lest I say something wrong or hear something horrible happen to Nigel. Dealing with the situation affected my home life and all social engagements. From the kids’ soccer parties or going out to dinner, everything revolved around time zone differences with Somalia.

Footage of Canadian Amanda Lindhout and Australian freelance photographer Nigel Brennan, the two foreign journalists kidnapped near Somalia’s capital. Screened on the Arabic Al Jazeera news service.

As the AFP and the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) increased their negotiations, they decreased my contact with the kidnappers and, in turn, Nigel. The AFP implemented a strategy of deliberately not talking to the kidnappers and we were not allowed to be involved in this decision.

After a while, the authorities took phone duties off me all together. I had no contact at all anymore with either Nigel or the kidnappers. We became desperate to hear Nigel’s voice to get any proof of life. No matter how awful the calls had been, at least we knew he was alive when we were receiving them. ‘Was he alive?’ was the constant unknown that hung over everything I did.

Friends cautioned me over the obsessive behavior that came with trying to get Nigel home. They were justified –Nigel was the last thing I thought about before I fell asleep and the first think I thought of when I woke up.

It had a huge impact on my relationship with my husband as I was effectively working full time on getting Nigel home. My husband had to be parent, home keeper and breadwinner all in one. I really was an absentee parent in my children’s lives at this stage and I’m very fortunate that they love Nigel dearly and could understand why it took my all.

The Australian government has a strict no ransom policy, though if a family has the means, they will negotiate on your behalf – though they refuse to allow you to offer any more than US$250,000.

We had raised half a million dollars to contribute ourselves when the government told us that they could no longer assist us if we were willing to provide that amount as a ransom. This news came 11 long months into Nigel’s ordeal.

Despite the government’s assurances they were doing all they could, other captives in Somalia that had been taken later than Nigel were being released, including Nigel’s Somalia colleagues.

After tracking down a phone number through friends of friends I spoke to one of the released kidnap victims and discovered there was an alternative to government channels – there were international risk management companies that specialised in kidnap and ransom.

My family members launched themselves into trying to find a company that would help us and even though the government actually uses these companies themselves, they were not forthcoming with names. After some long late night international calls we found some one who we thought could pull it off.

My sister-in-law and I flew to Canada to see him and try to get the Canadian family to come on board, as you cannot only get one kidnap victim out at a time – it’s an almost certain death penalty for the one left behind.

During our meeting John (our kidnap and ransom specialist) told us the average length of a kidnapping is three months. By this point, Nigel had been captive for almost four times this length of time. He suspected ours might take a little bit longer as we were in effect starting from scratch and had been affected by considerable government ‘noise’.

The change in direction was profound. Yes, we were paying a ransom, but for the first time there was a feeling of control. I was back to negotiating directly with the kidnappers and not feeling as worried about the calls as I had been initially.

Even when we received a torture phone call, John had helped us to prepare for the worst. He had mapped out a plan as to how the negotiations would work and for the first time since the whole ordeal began, things actually started working to plan.

After four months with John on board, including a trip to Nairobi for final negotiations and one failed recue attempt where we flew the extraction team and money in and back out again, Nigel was finally freed. Skinny, bearded and possibly changed forever – but free.

Nicky Bonney and her brother Nigel Brennan are guests on SBS’s Insight program on SBS ONE which explores what happens when Australians are kidnapped overseas. Host Jenny Brockie hears from those who have been held hostage, as well as families and kidnap and ransom negotiators who discuss the delicate process of hostage negotiation and debate the Australian Government’s ‘no ransom’ policy.

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September 26, 2013

Source: Fox News

Sandy Hatte, 60, was arrested in connection with the abduction. (LIVINGSTON COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE)

A boy abducted as an infant in Florida nearly 13 years ago has been reunited with his father, after a local school official grew suspicious about the boy’s school enrollment.

According to WDAF-TV, the school official contacted the sheriff’s office in Missouri’s Livingston County, where the boy was enrolled in school, and an investigation was conducted into the boy’s background.

The probe led to the arrest last week of the boy’s grandmother, Sandy Hatte, 60, who is being held on $25,000 bond, the station reports.

 “It was a good reunion.”

Sheriff’s detectives reportedly were able to locate the kidnapped boy’s biological father, who lives in Alabama. The detectives were able to uncover additional information about the boy that supported the allegation that the boy was abducted in 2000 when he was just an infant.

“The dad was working, come home from work and she was gone with the baby,” Detective Eric Menconi told WDAF-TV, Fox 4. “And he hasn’t been able to find them since.”

Hatte was homeless, but moved into the home of gentleman in Chillicothe, Mo., who offered the two a place to stay. The man said he had no idea Hatte was on the run until police showed up at his house, according to the station.

Hatte was taken into custody while officers went to the school to pick up the boy. Menconi said the boy was confused at first, but seems to be adapting well after being reunited with his father.

“It was a good reunion,” Menconi said. “You could tell within the first three minutes they hit it off pretty well. Since then I’ve been on the phone with the dad and from what I’m understanding it’s going very well. He’s adjusting.”

Click for the story from WDAF-TV, Fox 4.

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September 26, 2013

You can make your home or your business a whole lot more secure for little to no money. That’s because most of the best home protection simply involves smart thinking and good habits.

The days of leaving doors unlocked are over. Thanks to 2 million annual burglaries in the United States, the FBI estimates there is one every 15 seconds. To add insult to injury, the average thief nets nearly $1,500 in valuables per robbery.

With burglaries on the rise, intruders aren’t getting more elaborate – we’re getting sloppy with protecting our homes. Ninety percent of break-ins are preventable since intruders often prey on our mistakes instead of using forced entry.

Here’s how to protect your home to minimize your burglary odds and stay safe. For the purposes of this article, we’ll be addressing how to protect homes and not apartments, but some of our tips will apply to both.

Step No 1: replace your front door with one that doesn’t have a letter box. Burglars look through letter boxes, and put devices through them, including extendable fishing rods, with which they steal your keys as they hang in the hallway. It’s a no brainer, ditch the letter box. Replace it with a steel core security door.

Step No 2: fit a burglar alarm. The cost of these need not be prohibitive and they are a valuable deterrent. When you go to bed at night you can activate the zones that you don’t sleep in, meaning the ground floor of your home can be alarmed while you sleep soundly upstairs. The same principle can apply whether you live in a flat or a mansion.

Step No 3: fit CCTV to your home. Modern systems can be relatively inexpensive and look a whole lot better than the ugly earlier versions. The monitor can go in a garage, a loft or a cupboard and few burglars will want to be captured onscreen. Should your home be targeted, the police can be provided with valuable evidence.

The new fog alarms on the market is also very effective to protect you in your home or business.

Flash Fog: Flashfogsecurity.com

Step No 4 (optional): get a dog. I don’t have one, but I know what a brilliant deterrent a loyal and loud dog can be.

And now for the obvious: close your windows and doors at night and when you go out. Fit security locks if need be. Follow these steps and the chances are you will never have to face the dilemma of what to do when a burglar breaks in. Sacrifice a holiday to pay for your security. We all have a responsibility to protect ourselves, our families and our possessions. Don’t let the thieves win, and don’t come crying to me if you ignore my advice and become a victim.

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September 30, 2013

Source: Delfi.ee

Mai alguses Tallinnasse kruiisile tulnud Elena Blomgren ja tütar Matilda on jätkuvalt kadunud. Lapse otsimisega tegelevad noorsoopolitseinikud ja kohtutäitur, samuti lapse rootslasest isa.

Politsei pressiesindaja Andres Sang ütles Delfile, et hetkel politseil ei menetle antud juhtumit. “Põhja prefektuuri noorsoopolitseinikud aitavad kohtutäituril last otsida,” sõnas Sang.

Juhtumiga tegelev kohtutäitur teemat ei kommenteerinud, Harju maakohtust kinnitati, et “kohtumäärus on jõustunud”.

Justiitsministeeriumist öeldi järelepärimise peale, et Eestis ei menetleta seda juhtumit kriminaalasjana, sest meie karistusseadustikus ei ole sellist kuritegu. Interpoli toimikute järgi süüdistatakse Ukrainas sündinud, ent Eesti ja Rootsi kodakondsust omavat Elena Blomgreni inimröövis.

“Eestis tegelevad asjaga kohtutäitur ning politsei- ja piirivalveamet ning kumbki pole suutnud hetkel veel lapse asukohta tuvastada,” ütles ministeeriumi pressiesindaja Maria-Elisa Tuulik.

Justiitsministeeriumist selgitati veel, et rahvusvahelised lasteröövi juhtumid kuuluvad tsiviilõiguslike vaidluste alla, kus lapse tavalisest asukohast äraviimisele ei järgne karistust, vaid kohus otsustab, kas laps tuleb tagastada oma harilikku viibimiskohta või mitte.

“Seda reguleerib Haagi ehk lapseröövi konventsioon, mille peamine eesmärk on viivitamatu lapse tagasitoomine tema harilikku elukohariiki. Lihtsustatult võib öelda, et menetlus toimub lapse huvide kaitseks, mitte teda ära viinud vanema karistamiseks,” sõnas Tuulik.

Rootslane Magnus Blomgren otsib Facebooki eesti kasutajaskonnale lootes oma tütart Matildat, kes läks mai alguses emaga Tallinna kruiisile ja jäi pärast seda kadunuks.

Kohus rahuldas 6. augustil tehtud määrusega lapse isa avalduse ja kohustas lapse ema tagastama lapse Rootsi Kuningriigile 7 päeva jooksul kohtulahendi jõustumisest. Lapse emast ja lapsest pole aga siiani mingit märki.

Isa otsib Matildat jätkuvalt Facebooki vahendusel, nii tema kui lapse ema on ka Interpoli tagaotsitavate seas.

“Matilda elas minuga Stockholmis,” seisab Blomgreni eesti keelde tõlgitud Facebooki teates. “Maikuu alguses võttis Elena Matilda kaasa kruiisile Tallinna. Nad pidid olema tagasi pühapäeval 5. mail, kuid Elena ei toonud Matildat aga kunagi tagasi.

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Oktober 4, 2013

Kilde: Stavanger Aftenblad / ABP World Group

Frekkheten lenge leve. Nå har Arbeiderpartiet stemt ned 2 tidligere lovforslag om å stoppe bidragsytelser til barnebortførere. Nå har de sittet i regjering siden 2005 uten å ha igangsatt et eneste prevantivt tiltak for å stoppe barnebortføringer.

Til tross for press i media både fra ABP World Group, Bortført.no og enkeltstående foreldre av bortførte barn, har de på en svært arrogant måte nektet å sette en umiddelbar stopp for den grunnlovsstridige innkrevingspraksisen. -Det de imidlertid har gjort, er å i det stille snikinnføre en stopp av innkreving fra flesteparten av de fedre som har fått sine barn bortført.

Les Bortført.no`s artikkel: Arbeiderpartiets narrespill om Barnebortføring.

Stavanger Aftenblad

October 14, 2013

Source: ABP World Group

Is the “free” Tunisian press just a tool, used to cover up The Tunisian authorities neglect and violations of the international human rights?

This weekend Tunisian media has with great suport from the politicians launched a campaign against my brother and his friend. They are pointing them out as terrorists etc. Its all a big scam that in the end probably will lead to blackmail against our families and Sweden, its all about getting money for nothing.

The father that kidnapped his child from Norway is wanted by Interpol in Europe. He is convicted in Norway for several crimes. This is how the “nice” tourist country Tunisia looks behind the curtains. I would definetly not recomend any one to go there as a tourist as long as the political situation is the way it is. You could as well get kidnapped and charged for whatever reason. The trial was postponed, now we see why. To build a bigger threat against them, to make up a story in media, to launch this picture of them as privat mercenaries. Im afraid that this can end really bad. So whatever you can do to support them, whatever you can do to put pressure on Tunisia, if so only by not buying food from their country, please do. Thank you for your support so far, I will update this more frequently now that we are getting actions in Tunisia. Have a nice day. – Christian Franzetti ( Daniel Bakke`s Brother)

This is the articles where the “free” Tunisian press were used as a tool to legitimise the human rights violation of the Tunisian Government :

http://www.tunisiefocus.com/politique/noura-ouni-petite-fille-tunisienne-agee-de-9-ans-kidnappee-par-un-mercenaire-suedois-63808/

http://www.tunisienumerique.com/tunisie-des-mercenaires-etrangers-feraient-des-enlevements-en-tunisie/195672

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October 15, 2013

Source: wkcurrent.com

Writing the book was an ordeal in itself for her, Hollingsworth said, and she has laid out the story bluntly.

In addition to her daughter’s abductions, Rosalie reveals her own sad childhood, of betrayal and abuse that left her both vulnerable and determined.

As an adult, Hollingsworth suddenly found herself trying to cope with the twisted manipulations of her first husband, Franco. He swept her off her feet like a prince in a fairy tale, only to snatch away the one thing she loved the most.

In the book’s introduction, Hollingsworth details the cold and frightening statistics about child abduction:

“One child is reported missing every 40 seconds. … Of millions of children, an appalling 80 percent are parental kidnapping victims. Angry, jealous, fearful and, in some cases, deranged parents defy the law, stealing their children and disappearing. In the wake of each kidnapping are untold stories of despair and agony. After one year, over 50 percent of these cases will remain forever unsolved. This is the story of my daughter, Triana, who was twice taken from me. In the first abduction, my estranged Italian husband took our one year old baby and fled to Italy … Six years later, he kidnapped her again, disappearing with her into the remote jungles of South America.”

The book is filled with details of how Triana was dragged from one country to another, as her father changed identities like a chameleon, and the dangers she endured from predators of every ilk and shape.

Retelling her story still hits a raw nerve with Hollingsworth, even though Triana’s second abduction ended more than 25 years ago. It may be that some of her emotions will never be totally resolved, but perhaps become less jagged.

Asked why she finally decided to write the book, Hollingsworth said, “I was angry at myself for being naive, for having trusted this man who took my child. I was angry at Franco, Carmen (his mother), Kitty (his second wife) and the government — at every person who had not helped me locate my child or stood in my way of finding her. I needed to deal with this anger and writing helped me deal with most of it. I don’t know if I can ever forgive Franco for what he subjected my daughter to — it is just too painful to this day.”

Hollingsworth wrote at night when the house was quiet, but often found herself walking away from it when the thoughts and memories became too painful.

When she first met her husband, Franco, he appeared seemingly out of the blue, Hollingsworth said, and “I was dazzled by his devotion. He was diabolically charming and proposed to me after just six weeks.”

Franco, who came of age during WWII in war-torn Italy, was spoiled by his old-world Italian mother, who had tolerated his father’s debauchery. But he was also polished and well-educated, and to someone of his practiced cunning, Hollingsworth was easy prey.

What Hollingsworth found out only too late was that he had a temper that raged often and unexpectedly with jealousy, creating a constant firestorm in their relationship.

When Triana was only a year old, she was spirited away from their home in California by her conniving father and taken to Italy.

After eight agonizing months, using her own ruses and subterfuge, Hollingsworth was able to bring Triana back. For years, Hollingsworth parried with Franco over custody, and then, when she least expected it, the nightmare that had haunted her once again repeated itself.

The second time around, her ordeal took four years, scouring through the wilds of South America, as authorities and even church figures were not only ineffective, but also blocked her path.

Every time Hollingsworth tried to enlist the help of others, it seemed to fall mostly on deaf ears. It was only through her own courageous perseverence, and the help of several “guardian angels,” that Triana was eventually brought home.

During the intervening years, Hollingsworth met and married another man, Stan. He brought his own sons into the picture, adding a layer of complication. The couple then had another child. It was while she was pregnant with Tisha that the final drama unfolded, making it even more precarious and volatile.

The debris left behind in the wake of traumatic events to Triana, Hollingsworth and other members of the family is immeasurable and will never be completely tidied up.

Triana is left coping with low self-esteem. Over time and with counseling, she has made progress, Hollingsworth said, but she is still left with difficult challenges.

However, Triana has brought her mother a wonderful gift in the form of a son, on whom Hollingsworth dotes, as she does all her grandchildren.

Younger sister, Tisha, has three of her own boys and stays in touch, as do some of Stan’s sons.

Reflecting on the aftermath, Hollingsworth said, “Someone asked me out of all the things that happened, what did I learn? All I can say is that none of it was worth the loss of my child and what she went through. To me, true knowledge comes from good things, and this wasn’t a good thing.”

For children who are rescued, her advice is for them not to blame themselves for trusting the parent who abducted them.

Today, Hollingsworth’s greatest consolation are the children and grandchildren who beam back at her from the many photographs she has placed around her home. They are her next generation of treasures, and she joyfully basks in their glow.

Hollingsworth said she wrote the book to bring greater attention to the issue of child abduction. In the 1970s, the government was of little help, but, she added, “Today we have the government getting involved, along with all kind of alerts and publicity to kidnappings and child abductions.”

The other, and more important part of her message, she said, was to parents of abducted children.

“Do not give up the search. Do what you have to do to locate your child. Use every resource you can possibly find. Contact every person you know who could help. Don’t give up.”

For more information about Hollingsworth’s book and child stealing, visit http://www.destructionofinnocence.com. Reviews can be found at amazon.com and at barnesandnoble.com.

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October 19, 2013

Source: thestarphoenix.com

A Saskatoon man accused of abducting his Brazilian toddler daughter from Ukraine in July will return to court Tuesday for a bail hearing. Alexander Fiodor Levine, 47, is charged with parental abduction between July 10, 2013 and Oct 11, 2013.

The child was found on the weekend, safe and healthy, in the Philippines, after Levine was arrested and charged in Saskatoon on Oct. 11, said Saskatoon police spokeswoman Kelsie Fraser.

The child was in the care of Philippine child welfare authorities as of Tuesday.

Fraser said it’s not yet clear why Levine allegedly took the child to the Philippines, or who he left her with in that country.

“I don’t believe he had a connection to the Philippines,” Fraser said.

Lavine, who lives in Saskatoon, is the father of the two-year-old girl who was born in Brazil to her Brazilian mother, Oziene Barbosa. The child never lived in Canada, Fraser said.

This summer, Levine and Barbosa travelled from Brazil to Ukraine. Barbosa reported the abduction to Ukrainian authorities in July, Fraser said.

Brazilian authorities were also notified. They contacted Saskatchewan Justice and the Saskatoon Police Service in August.

Numerous law enforcement and government agencies, in Canada and abroad, joined the investigation, including the SPS sex crimes and child abuse unit, the major crimes unit, forensic identification unit and tech crimes units, along with the RCMP National Missing Children Operations, the Canada Border Services Agency, Saskatchewan Justice and officials in the Philippines and Brazil.

Levine was arrested Friday in Saskatoon and charged with one count of parental abduction of a child with intent to deprive her lawful parent of the possession of the child.

Canada Border Services helped by tracking Levine’s passport to the Philippines, where authorities then became involved, Fraser said.

On Tuesday, Levine made a brief appearance, via video link, in Saskatoon provincial court, where he was remanded until Tuesday.

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Octobre 21, 2013

Source: Ilsecolosix Italia

October 22, 2013

Source: Irish independent

THE ex-girlfriend of a bank official forced to hand over €7.6m during a tiger kidnapping is suing the bank for alleged negligence.

October 23, 2013

Source: ABP World Group Ltd. 

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October27, 2013

Source: zambianwatchdog.com

The true nature of a child abducting parent

Elizabeth Daka, the Zambian woman who is facing criminal charges in Ireland for allegedly abducting her Irish-born sons to Zambia has been involved in a road accident.

The accident happened near Manda Hill at 14 hours today and the passenger who was with Elizabeth died on the spot.
Elizabeth is said to have been drunk when she was driving the vehicle. She survived with only minor bruises but her friend, a ZESCO employee, had her skull opened by the crash and died instantly.
According to information received, both Elizabeth and her friend-passenger were not wearing seat belts.
‘Elizabeth was drunk and speeding and tried to make a turn but crashed into a drain,’ said a source.
Elizabeth Daka had two sons, Ethan Quarry, 6, and Troy Daka-Beary, one-year-11 months, with two different Irish men while in Ireland but decided to move back to Zambia three months ago without informing the children’s fathers.

When he came to look for his children, Richard Quarry, who is still married to Elizabeth, claimed his wife had a history of alcohol abuse, child neglect and depression, adding that she might put the children in danger.
Now Elizabeth faces a possible charge of causing dearth by dangerous driving.

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The following article is noteworthy for offering evidence, in its comment on the case of a Mr. Thompson, “which has all too many parallels in California,” suggesting that parental kidnapping was already, by the 1850s quite a common ocurrance in the United States

November 26 , 2013

Source: ABP News

“We have kidnappings, abductions, assaults, sexual offences. Anything that you can imagine could happen, does happen, in the name of honour,” says Nazir Afzal, Crown Prosecutor for the north-west of England.

And murder – 10 to 12 cases a year. Yet as the hyper-active, smartly dressed lawyer concedes in his Manchester office, violence invoked in the name of family honour, mostly by citizens of South Asian and Middle Eastern origin, is often hidden and unreported.

Mr Afzal knows about honour, having grown up in Birmingham in a Pakistani Muslim household.

Honour, he says, can be a good thing, helping bind families and communities together.

But, “at the moment in so many communities, in so many families, it is merely used to suppress women, to oppress women. So, if they misbehave in some way, or make their own choice, they have dishonoured the family. If men do the same, well it’s men – you know they do what they want. Regrettably too often it’s used to control women.”

After World War II, Britain received waves of migrants from its former colonies in India, Pakistan and later Bangladesh.

Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and others came, some for higher education, but mostly to work in the factories around London and in the Midlands and north of England.

In England, generations who self-identify as Asian now number more than 4 million, 8 per cent of the English population.

‘In the name of the father, the son, and the male members of the family’

Arranged marriages are a still a feature of migrant communities, with parents agreeing that their children will marry, particularly first cousins. But for teenagers growing up in the United Kingdom, torn between the strictures of home and the freedoms of 21st century Britain, arranged marriages too often become forced marriages.

“There are probably between 8,000 to 10,000 forced marriages or threats of forced marriages in the United Kingdom every year,” Mr Afzal says.

“We prosecuted more than 200 cases last year of honour-based violence. What we have here are crimes in the name of the father, the son and the blessed male members of the family.”

Currently there is no law against forced marriage in the United Kingdom. That will change early next year, with new legislation similar to that introduced this year in Australia.

Hundreds of young girls disappear from British schools every year

Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has a unit devoted to trying to prevent young people, mostly girls and women but also boys and men, being compelled to travel abroad to marry someone whom in many cases they have never met.

The Forced Marriage Unit handled 1,485 cases last year, 35 per cent of them involving teenagers aged 17 or younger. One of its biggest problems is trying to track down people who travel to South Asia and never return.

Mr Afzal says a British government survey of school pupils highlighted the problem.

“They discovered hundreds and hundreds of young girls, and by that I mean 11, 12, 13-year-olds, who would just disappear off the school rolls.”

While it is illegal in the United Kingdom for anyone to marry under the age of 16, marriages involving children still happen in South Asia and the Middle East.

Sometimes girls do not return to Britain until they are pregnant, the theory being that this may assist the process by which the husband seeks residency in the United Kingdom.

Girl told to ‘put a spoon in your knickers’ at airport to avoid being sent abroad

Jasvinder Sanghera, who escaped a forced marriage by running away from her Sikh family home in Derby at the age of 15, formed Karma Nirvana 20 years ago to help people in trouble.

She says the Leeds-based charity has received more than 30,000 calls since 2008.

“To me that’s a drop in the ocean … it could be quadrupled,” she said.

Photo: 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed was smothered by her parents after rejecting an arranged marriage in Pakistan (AFP: supplied)

Ms Sanghera recalls an occasion when a girl feared she was being taken abroad against her will.

“The call handler said, ‘Put a spoon in your knickers. When you go through security it will go off and at that point you’re going to be stopped by a security guard and say I’m being forced to marry’. Which is exactly what she did, and it saved her life.”

Campaigning on the issues of forced marriages has given Ms Sanghera a high profile, an MBE, a meeting with prime minister David Cameron and with countless senior police and other government officials. And yet she believes schools, police and communities are not taking forced marriages and honour-based violence seriously enough.

“If you are Asian and missing from education, the same questions are not asked as [of their] white counterparts here in Britain,” she said.

“And that has not changed because we know there are hundreds going missing off our school rolls. Maybe they’re not being forced into marriage, but the point is, ask the question and look into it. They’re not even doing that.”

As for police: “There are some police forces which are doing sterling work now and trying to get it right. On the ground it’s a different story. There are 43 police forces across the UK and I would refer to potentially four [getting it right]. You know, it’s very much dependent on the person you get on the day.”

British police have been severely criticised for their failures in a series of high-profile honour killings:

• Banaz Mahmud, 20, strangled on the orders of her father and uncle
• Surjit Athwal, 27, murdered on the orders of her mother-in-law and brother-in-law
• Shafilea Ahmed, 17, suffocated by her parents.

In each case, police initially, and in some cases repeatedly, failed to comprehend the seriousness of the threat.

As Ms Sanghera tells trainee detectives in Birmingham, relating the Banaz Mahmud case: “She told police her family was planning to kill her because she’d left an abusive marriage and was seen kissing a man outside a Tube station. And she was not believed. She was dealt with as being melodramatic, fantasising.”

Just a month later she’d been raped and garrotted, her body packed in a suitcase and buried in a garden.

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November 30, 2013

Source: BBC

A north London mother has won a landmark ruling to get her children back from Russia after they were abducted by their father. Rachael Neustadt, from Hendon, says Ilya Neustadt took their two sons on holiday in December but never returned.

Moscow City Court ruled that Daniel and Jonathan had been illegally kept in Russia in breach of a UK High Court order. Mrs Neustadt said she was delighted by the ruling.

Missing persons

The court said that five-year-old Jonathan and seven-year-old Daniel should be flown back to London. Mrs Neustadt, a former teacher from the US, claims that Mr Neustadt, who was a lecturer at London Metropolitan University, ignored repeated requests from judges in England to return their sons. Interpol also issued missing persons notices for the boys.

The case is the first to successfully use the 1996 Hague Convention on child abduction in England and Russia, which Russia ratified in June and the UK signed last year.

In September, the Russian court told Mr Neustadt to return the two children. He appealed against the decision and lost on Wednesday. Mrs Neustadt said she had campaigned for the last 11 months to bring her sons home.

“I think that day my heart started racing and it hasn’t stopped,” she said.

“Every day I think what can I do to bring them back.

“They liked everything and there’s nothing that tells me that why just because they’ve been given a passport that they are Russians that belong in Russia.”

The boys’ maternal grandmother, Merry Rapp, has been helping care for the youngest son two-year-old Meir, while Mrs Neustadt fights her legal battle.

“It is very confusing for them,” she said.

“They have been told so much that is totally wrong. For example, that your mother no longer loves you. How do you say that and not damage a child? It’s not right.”

‘Hidden problem’

The charity Reunite International, which supports parents, said child abduction was a hidden problem. The group said that its helpline received 8,112 calls last year and the numbers were increasing.

Joanne Orton, the advice line co-ordinator, said: “We had 506 new parental abduction cases reported to us which involved 728 children. We also had 412 new prevention cases involving a further 586 children.

“Travel is easier and cheaper than ever leading to more mixed nationality partnerships than ever.

“Where a relationship has formed with one or both parents originating from a different country to the one they have settled in, if that relationship then breaks down, very often one parent will want to return to the comfort of their family in their native country.”

She added that 70% of abductions were carried out by the mother.

“The saddest fact is, that when a child is abducted whilst both parents suffer as a result, ultimately the one person that suffers the most is the child,” she said.

Mr Neustadt has said he may appeal against the latest ruling.

He said: “We will finally reach some amicable solution based on compromises and not on possible actions that would be completely against the children’s best interests.”

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ABP World Group Risk Management

December 1 , 2013

ABP World Group Ltd.

Every year, during or after the Christmas holiday, ABP World Group are contacted by frantic parents who have had their child or children abducted while on holiday. ABP World Group provides advice on what to do if your children are abducted.

Very often there is a parent who has had children with someone of foreign origin and has allowed a holiday trip to that parent’s homeland. But it also happens that parents abduct the children when on holiday abroad as visitation sabotage.

Sometimes the abduction happens as quick as a lightning bolt and when the other parent returns home, the house is empty. All these forms are defined as international child abduction, and have a maximum penalty up to 3 years in prison.

Many parents ask us for advice on how to prevent one parent from taking the child abroad on holiday. However, this is very difficult to prevent when the courts in many countries often do not take parental concerns seriously.

Child abductors are not penalized in their homeland, since The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction is only a vehicle for the return of children and does not deal with punishment.

As few as 3 out of 10 children abducted return.

What should you do if your child is abducted?

• If you have evidence that the child has been abducted or held back after vacation, immediately contact a lawyer who has expertise in international child abduction.

•You can also get guidance by contacting ABP World Group.
•You must report the situation to both the police and the Ministry of Justice. (Ministry responsible for any claim for return under the Hague Convention).
•Time is of utmost importance, so you must work fast and focused. It is best if the police have initiated a quick inquiry before the abductor can leave the country with the child/children.
•It is also important to act quickly in terms of The Hague Convention.

Which parent abducts children?

Sociopath is an American term which is very close to what we define as antisocial personality disorder. These parents lack conscience, guilt and remorse, they are aggressive and have little respect for the norms, laws and regulations.

The U.S. study emphasizes sociopaths or antisocial personality disorder, but also parents with narcissistic, paranoid and borderline personality disorder are high risk for child abduction and visitation sabotage.

Visit our website here: www.abpworld.com

ABP World Group Risk Management