Efforts to locate an abducted girl in Cyprus are on a good path
Police expect new developments in abduction case
Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou says efforts to locate an abducted girl in Cyprus are on a good path, following reports that Marie Eleni Grimsrud and her father may still be in the south of the island, not in the north.
Marie, aged 4, was taken when her mother dropped her off at her nursery in Nicosia on April 27. The girl’s father is suspected of orchestrating the abduction from his ex-wife.
An international arrest warrant has been issued against the 49-year-old Norwegian father of the girl, Leif Torkel Grimsrud, who is divorced from the girl’s Cypriot mother. He is being sought on suspicion of kidnapping, abduction and assault.
Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou says police are doing everything possible to locate Marie, saying that “our biggest concern is that the little girl is back with her mother at the soonest possible.”
The minister said the investigation was on a good path and that he believed there would be new developments.
“There are statements given during interrogation that add new information that could be helpful,” he said.
Daily Politis on Wednesday reported police in Cyprus may have been deliberately misled into believing Marie and her father are in the north of Cyprus, when it remains highly plausible they are still in the south.
The paper’s sources have also cast doubt on the testimony of Marie’s mother after lawyers representing her father in Norway said that while the child had been taken, it had not been by masked men driving in a black Range Rover as her mother told the police.
The paper suggested the child’s mother was confused and in a state of shock when she described the abduction.
“It should be noted that investigators are not taking any testimony for granted and are cross referencing all the information at hand. They essentially started the investigation from the beginning and are now close to solving it,” Politis said.
Politis said police believe it is a matter of time before a 49-year-old Dutch woman held in custody in connection with Marie’s abduction, opens up about her alleged involvement in the case.
The authorities are also reportedly looking into whether the woman, was involved in a recent similar case in Lebanon.
Politis said informed sources had revealed the police obtained eye-witness testimony Marie and a woman had on the morning of the abduction got out of a white taxi in the Halepianes area of Nicosia before being picked up by a driver in a Nissan. It is then thought they were taken to Tseri.
A 44-year-old taxi driver also in custody in connection with the abduction told police he picked up Marie and a man thought to be her father from Dassoupoli and took them to Tseri, but he did not mentioned any woman being with the child.
The Limassol taxi driver told police he stayed at the Dutch woman’s home in Nicosia the night before the abduction and was paid €100 to transport the man and child to Tseri.
Politis has said the Dutch suspect is link to a German woman also implicated in the abduction. The two women are suspected of being part of a team Leif Torkel allegedly paid to help abduct his daughter.
Apart from the Dutch woman and taxi driver, police have detained another two people in custody in connection with Marie’s abduction, another Cypriot man – also aged 44 – and a 34-year-old Syrian man. Two other men were released without charge.
Recent developments in the case, meanwhile, include the discovery of a plastic bag near the little girl’s kindergarten containing clothes and a hair accessory believed to belong to Marie, indicating her abductors immediately changed her clothes.
“Investigations are moving at an intense pace and there is now basis for hope the four-year-old will soon be found or that her father will turn himself in as he feels the ‘noose’ tightening around him,” Politis said.
