A three-year-old daughter, who was illegally taken abroad by her father from Kyiv in October last year, has been returned to her mother. Law enforcement officers found the child in Moldova, where she was being held in an apartment in unsanitary conditions.
This was reported to the Kyiv police.
A Kyiv woman contacted law enforcement officers after reporting that her daughter had disappeared while walking near her home. She immediately assumed that her ex-husband could have taken the child, as the couple had continued to have conflicts after their divorce, the report states.
The police found out that the court allowed the father to communicate with his children exclusively remotely – by phone or via video call and only in the presence of the mother.
“Despite this, the 42-year-old Kyiv man arrived at his ex-wife's house and, staying in the car nearby, waited for the right moment to pick up the child. When the girl was on the playground with her great-grandmother, he suddenly ran up, forcibly grabbed the child and ran away,” the police said.
Later, the man took the child out of Ukraine in his own car, as he had permission to cross the state border due to his status as a father of many children.
The child was put on the international wanted list. She was found in Moldova – with strangers, where she was in unsanitary conditions. The girl has already been returned to her mother, her life and health are not in danger. The father was detained by Moldovan law enforcement officers. The procedure for his extradition to Ukraine is currently underway.
Investigators informed him in absentia of suspicion under Part 2 of Article 146 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine of child abduction, as well as under Part 1 of Article 382 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine of failure to comply with a court decision. The most severe sanction for the incriminated articles is up to five years of imprisonment.