Santiago's mother, who was arrested in Amsterdam after removing her very premature baby on October 21 from a maternity ward in Seine-Saint-Denis, was handed over to the French authorities on Thursday, November 7, announced a source close to the case and the Dutch prosecutor's office at Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The 25-year-old young mother arrived at Paris – Charles-de-Gaulle airport in the middle of the afternoon and must be presented to an investigating judge, according to the source close to the case. She had left Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on a plane that left “around 2 p.m.”specified a spokesperson for the Dutch public prosecutor's office, Franklin Wattimena.
The infant was repatriated to France on October 31 by ambulance and is doing well, according to the same source. Very premature, born two months early, he was taken from a hospital in Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris. The 17-day-old newborn, in an incubator, had been taken in a shopping bag by his parents who had fled to Belgium then the Netherlands.
After four days of police tracking in Europe, the Dutch police found the two parents and the baby in good health on the evening of October 25 in a hotel room in Amsterdam. The father and mother had been placed in pre-trial detention in the Netherlands, pending their transfer to France.
Driven by “fear”
The lawyer for Santiago's mother, Romuald Sayagh, described it to AFP on Thursday as animated by “fear” when a placement of the baby had been mentioned, even though“she had adhered to the care”. The parents had an interview with the hospital teams on the day of the kidnapping.
“She is in a state of post-traumatic stress because you should know that parents of premature children go through a period of post-traumatic stress”reinforced in this case by “the threat of child placement”assured Me Sayagh. It is according to him that it is “fear” Who “led these parents to flee”.
The young mother must be brought before the courts for indictment, before possible placement in pre-trial detention. Both parents were not handed over to France at the same time, because the mother had requested an accelerated procedure, while the father had opted for a long procedure, which could take several months.
The case was highly publicized, due to the triggering of a kidnapping alert in France and Belgium. Many police officers were mobilized to find the baby, whose condition required constant care, as quickly as possible.
