Abduction case remand extended

The remand of the 46-year-old man, detained in connection with the abduction of four-year-old Marie- Eleni Grimsrud outside her kindergarten in Dasoupolis on April 27, has been extended by two more days, police said on Sunday. The four-year-old is currently with her father, who allegedly was behind the abduction.

The suspect was arrested on May 5 and was initially remanded for eight days, but police requested an extension after it expired. He is alleged to have been the driver of a car spotted on CCTV footage at the time and from the place which the taxi that is believed to have taken father and child from Dasoupoli to Tseri left.

On Saturday, police re-arrested a Dutch woman in connection with the case. The woman had been arrested after the April 27 abduction but was released earlier this week.

Deputy police spokesman Stelios Stylianou said the 49-year-old woman was re-arrested after the police found new information. The suspect was allegedly involved in arranging a taxi to pick up the the girl and her father from Dasoupolis, where the abduction had taken place.

There were claims she was also in the taxi and her DNA had been found on a bottle collected from the getaway vehicle.

Data from her phone showed that she had been in contact with one of the suspects initially arrested by police.

The four-year-old’s parents are divorced and she had been living in Cyprus with her mother, while her father was in Norway. The girl’s mother Eleni Ioannou, 48, said that two hooded men snatched Marie Eleni outside her kindergarten in Dasoupolis and drove off.

A lawyer for the girl’s father, Norwegian national Torkel Grimsrud, 49, said that the father took the girl himself.

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