Six-year-old Eitan Biran, who survived a cable car accident near Lake Maggiore this summer that killed both his parents, will be returned to his aunt in Italy, an Israeli court ruled on Monday.
The boy’s aunt filed a civil custody suit following the abduction by his maternal grandfather in September, seeking his return to Italy.
Last month, Italian media reported that Biran’s grandfather had spirited the child to Israel via private jet, in an incident described by several family members as an international kidnapping.
According to a report in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, 58-year old Shmuel Peleg picked up the boy – who he believed was in poor “mental and physical condition” – for a court-ordered visit. Peleg, who had retained possession of Eitan’s Israeli passport, then drove him in a rental car to Lugano, Switzerland where he and his grandson boarded a chartered business jet to Tel Aviv.
Eitan was the only survivor when the cable car he was riding with his 2-year-old brother Tom and parents Amit Biran and Tal Peleg-Biran, an Israeli couple studying and working in Italy, plunged to the ground at a popular tourist site in late May. Also killed were Tal’s grandparents Barbara and Itzhak Cohen, who were visiting Italy at the time. In total, 14 people lost their lives in the accident, which investigators later blamed on negligence by the gondola’s operators.
After being released from the hospital, Biran, who is a dual Israeli-Italian citizen, found himself at the center of an acrimonious custody dispute in which his family in Israel accused their Italian counterparts of abducting and mistreating him. Until September, he was in the care of paternal aunt Aya Biran-Nirko in the city of Pavia.
Police and rescue service members are seen near a crashed cable car after it collapsed in Stresa, Italy, in May.ITALIAN POLICE/Handout via REUTERS
In a statement at the time of the abduction, Milo Hisbani, president of the Milanese Jewish community, condemned “the kidnapping of little Eitan,” which he called a “serious act that violates Italian and international laws.”
More details soon…
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