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His wife and daughters were thinking of spending a vacation in Sudan, but the father’s plans did not include a return ticket. Despite an arrest warrant, he risks nothing as long as he stays in the country.
As soon as he got off the plane, the father grabbed the Swiss passports of his wife and daughters.
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“This trial is extraordinary in many ways.” It is with these words that the Friborg prosecutor Stéphanie Amara began her indictment on Thursday in Granges-Paccot. Extraordinary, because “trials in Switzerland for kidnapping and forcible confinement abroad are rather rare”, continued the Public Ministry.
Extraordinary, too, for the facts. In 2018, on the eve of the holidays, a Sudanese father decided to take his wife and three daughters, naturalized Swiss, to the country for a so-called vacation. In reality, he had no intention of returning. As soon as he got there, he grabbed everyone’s passports, as well as his wife’s phone. Then, he returned, in secret, to Switzerland to announce the departure of the family to his commune of residence, to terminate the lease of the apartment and to try to get his hands on the LPP assets of the couple. All this by roughly imitating the signature of his wife.
“She reacted quickly, courageously and intelligently”
But, while the plan was going so far without a hitch, the woman managed to deceive the vigilance of her in-laws. She hid her daughters away from the latter, before returning to Switzerland at the end of January 2019. She filed a complaint and redid the papers for herself and the little ones. “Fortunately she reacted quickly, courageously and intelligently,” applauds her lawyer. Finally, at the beginning of March, the mother was able to recover her three daughters and bring them back to Switzerland. The father meanwhile settled permanently in Sudan, where he started a new life with a second wife. Despite the issuance of an international arrest warrant, his country will not arrest or extradite him. Sudanese law is on his side: as a father, he has the right to decide where his children will live. It is therefore logical that he did not appear at the trial.
And finally, this trial is extraordinary because, despite this second false leap in the face of Swiss justice – he had been summoned for the first time last year – the Court considered that he could not be tried in his absence, for lack of having been sufficiently heard. But there was still a trial. The accused’s brother, living in German-speaking Switzerland, is considered by the prosecution to be a co-perpetrator. Many messages between the two men highlight that he largely contributed to the development of the plan. The defense disagrees. She believes that he did not play a decisive role in this affair, even if the man, who only spoke Arabic and German, does not hide having supported his brother in his efforts. The verdict will be given next week.
On the one hand, the mother and plaintiff was visibly very affected by this whole affair, crying hot tears several times during the trial. On the other, his future ex-brother-in-law seemed very detached. To the questions asked, he often answered yes, no or I don’t remember. However, the sentence requested by the prosecutor is 3 years in prison, including 12 months firm. In addition, the forties claimed compensation for moral damage of 20,000 francs for her, and 10,000 francs for each of her three daughters.
If the messages exchanged between the two Sudanese brothers constitute the main, if not the only, material proof, some of them are explicit and sometimes very violent. After congratulating his brother on the kidnapping, the girls’ uncle wrote, “Now you have to bully them and subdue them, make them bite the dust.” From these conversations, there also emerges a desire for revenge after an alleged lack of respect. On this subject, the victim explained: “My brother-in-law wanted to marry my sister, but my family refused.” Moreover, the man already has a wife in Switzerland and, according to his sister-in-law, a second in Sudan, a country where polygamy is authorized, even encouraged.