JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A six-year-old boy, the sole survivor of an Italian cable car disaster who was kidnapped and taken to Israel by his grandfather, will be returned to Italy no later than Dec. 12, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
The court rejected a request by Eitan Biran’s maternal grandfather to appeal previous Israeli court rulings which said the boy must be sent back to his paternal aunt in Italy.
The child had been living with the aunt since his parents, younger brother and 11 other people died when a gondola plunged to the ground in northern Italy in May.
In September, while visiting Eitan, his maternal grandfather, without the aunt’s consent, drove him to Switzerland and chartered a private jet onward to Israel.
The aunt petitioned the Israeli family court for his return to Italy. The court found that the grandfather’s actions amounted to kidnapping under the Hague Convention on the return of abducted children.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Jeffrey Heller)
