French prosecutors on Tuesday announced an international arrest warrant for a leading figure in conspiracy circles who is suspected of helping to organize the kidnapping of an eight-year-old girl that gripped the nation last week.
The girl, identified as Mia, was found on Sunday with her 28-year-old mother, Lola Montemaggi, by police in Switzerland, following an intense five-day search after she was taken from her grandmother’s home in Poulieres, eastern France.
Five men, as well as Montemaggi, have been detained over the abduction, which saw three of the men pose as child welfare officials to convince the grandmother to hand over Mia.
Prosecutors said the plot was code-named “Operation Lima,” and that they had walkie-talkies, camping gear, fake license plates and a budget of 3,000 euros (US$3,600) to cover expenses.
They said the mother’s associates in the kidnapping plan were anti-system activists who believe that “children in care are unfairly taken from their parents.”
After questioning the suspects, investigators said that they might have been helped by Remy Daillet, known to French police as a proponent of extremist conspiracy theories and a populist takeover of the state.
Daillet, 54, was a former regional leader of the centrist Democratic Movement Party before he was excluded in 2010.
French daily Le Parisien on Tuesday reported that he has been living in Malaysia for several years.
“Remy Daillet appears to be a leading organizer of the ‘movement’ to which the suspects belong,” state prosecutor Francois Perain in the eastern city of Nancy said in a statement.
He might also have “played a role in organizing the kidnapping and provided the contact details for the person who took in the mother and child in Neuchatel” as they fled France, he said.
According to Le Parisien, French investigators said Daillet might also have encouraged a vehicle ramming attack on a police station in Dax, southwestern France, in November last year.
Last summer, they said he used a fake social media account to praise vandals who defaced a prominent Nazi massacre memorial at Oradour-sur-Glane, with slogans denying the Holocaust.
Mia’s mother had lost custody of her daughter and was no longer allowed to see her alone or speak with her on the telephone.
Hundreds of police were mobilized in the search, which ended on Sunday morning at a squat inside an abandoned factory in the Swiss municipality of Sainte-Croix.
Mia was on Monday returned to her grandmother’s care, while Lola Montemaggi remains in Swiss custody awaiting extradition.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese