Two little boys for whom a kidnapping alert had been triggered on Monday in the North were found safe and sound, their father, suspected of being the perpetrator of the kidnapping, having been arrested shortly after, AFP learned from reliable sources.
“By decision of the Avesnes-sur-Helpe public prosecutor’s office, the kidnapping alert is ended. The children have been found,” the Ministry of Justice announced on X. Nassim, three years old, and Mohammed, five years old, were kidnapped around 1:10 p.m. in a shopping street in the town center of Fourmies (North) where they were with their mother.
Their father, whose photo had been released by the gendarmerie, is suspected of having kidnapped them by threatening their mother with a knife, according to a source close to the case interviewed by AFP. He had fled with the children in the car.
Aged 38, their father was arrested at 9:35 p.m. “smoothly” by investigators from the Lille research section and placed in police custody, according to a source close to the case. He was arrested “near his home”, in Beuvrages, near Valenciennes, another source close to the case told AFP.
“When the children were found, they were with the father,” who then ran away. “They were leaving a house,” according to the same source.
-Having just been released from prison, their father was prohibited from being in the presence of his ex-partner who has a “serious danger” telephone, a protection device for people threatened by their former spouse.
“It was a situation of conflictual separation,” said one of the sources interviewed by AFP, indicating that the man was already known to the police for violence against the mother of his children.
“As the mother suffered domestic violence and we have support structures here for such people, it is possible that she came (to Fourmies, editor’s note) in this context,” said the mayor of Fourmies Mickaël Hiraux, interviewed by AFP earlier in the evening. The national kidnapping alert system was triggered on Monday around 7:25 p.m.
Many gendarmes had been mobilized, and the Police and Customs Cooperation Center (CCPD) in Tournai, Belgium, had also been put on alert, given the risk of the alleged kidnapper crossing the Franco-Belgian border with the children. The Avesnes-sur-Helpe public prosecutor’s office had initially planned to communicate on the case on Tuesday.
