The judicial control of Santiago's mother includes a ban on leaving French territory, the payment of bail, reporting to the police station and an obligation to provide care.
Obsession to see your baby again
Romuald Sayagh welcomes a “humane decision on the part of the two investigating judges”. According to the lawyer, his client is “very fragile in a state of post-traumatic stress after the birth of her premature child” and “her obsession is to see her baby again”. As of Thursday evening, the prosecution had not filed an appeal against this placement under judicial supervision.
The infant was repatriated to France on October 31 by ambulance and is doing well, according to a source close to the case.
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, was taken in a shopping bag by his parents who then fled to Belgium and 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.
Placement of the child mentioned
The lawyer for Santiago's mother, Me Romuald Sayagh, described her on Thursday as driven by “fear” since 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 incident.
“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 the child being placed”, assured Mr. Sayagh. According to him, it was “fear” which “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.
