After months on the run, an Austrian man and his Slovakian wife have been arrested by the Italian border police in the port of Bari. The couple are accused of child abduction, as they had abducted their almost two-year-old daughter after custody was taken away from them in Upper Austria.
The arrest took place immediately after the arrival of a ferry from Dubrovnik. The officers in the port of Bari became aware of the woman because she was visibly nervous as she left the ferry and the little girl she was holding in her arms had no identity papers. Shortly afterwards, the authorities identified the husband at the wheel of a vehicle with German license plates. A check confirmed the existence of European arrest warrants issued by the Steyr District Court, Division 1, as well as an international alert for the child.
The couple had been deprived of custody of their daughter after repeated domestic disputes that required police intervention. By court order, the child was therefore placed in the care of a foster family on May 27. Despite this, the parents are said to have fled abroad with the girl, with stopovers in Slovakia and Croatia, before their escape ended in Italy.
Following the arrest of the parents, the almost two-year-old daughter was immediately placed in a secure facility. The father is now in the Bari prison, while the mother was transferred to the prison in the city of Trani. Both are awaiting extradition proceedings, on which the competent court of appeal will decide, in order to hand them over to Austrian justice.
