The Greek lawyer of a mother who reported her missing received a letter from the father's lawyers in Norway, stating that the 6-year-old is in a safe place with his father in his country.
According to the mother's lawyer, Christos Economakis, the woman's attempts to contact the Norwegian father of the child remained fruitless as she is in a legal dispute with him over custody of their child Rainer Jason Pedersen.
Economakis speaks of a pre-planned and crucial process of kidnapping the child, which endangered his life.
"We have sent documents to the lawyers representing the father in both Greece and Norway, without having received any substantial answer," the lawyer explained.
"In telephone communications, we and the mother have tried to contact the father but he has not responded. His phone is off," said Economakis.
At the same time, the child's mother, through her voice message, appealed to everyone to find her son.
"My name is Nina Etmektzoglou, I am Rainer's mother, who was abducted from our house last night by a hooded man," she said.
"I want to make an appeal to help us find my child. He is already 19 hours away from us without knowing where he is.
"I appeal to anyone who has done this act, please return him to our house for the good of my child."
What the father's side says
"The mother abducted and was illegally holding the child in Greece," said the father's lawyer, Patrinia-Maria Adamopoulou. "The case I handled is a case of child abduction under the Hague Convention."
"The first decisions that have been issued - the first instance and the appellate - say that the mother is illegally holding the child in Greece.
"In other words, she has been abducted, but the court does not order the child to return to Norway, because his life there will be unbearable.
"There is a Hague Convention on Child Abduction. According to it, if there is a kidnapping, the return of the child is ordered, unless the court deems that the return of the child to the place from where he was abducted will make his life unbearable.
"The court ruled that these conditions are met, which allow the Greek court not to order the immediate return of the child.
"With the appeal that the father has filed in the Supreme Court, he says that the appellate court incorrectly applied the Hague convention.
"So this case that I handled and the one that is pending, is not a case of custody, but of implementation of the Hague Convention on Child Abduction," the lawyer told Proto Thema.
The Greek mother and the Norwegian father are blaming each other for the abduction
The case is not the first time that the authorities are concerned, as the couple has caused publicity other times - both here and in Norway, where they lived for a few years. The two of them have been found many times in the courts, with neither of them, as it seems, giving any importance to the decisions.
In fact, in September 2021, the father of 6-year-old Rainer Jason Pedersen, had also accused his ex-wife of kidnapping their child at a time when he had been granted custody by a decision of the Norwegian courts.
As he accused, the woman went so far as to forge his signature in order to issue a passport to the child and bring him to Greece.
According to Norwegian media, Pedersen came to Greece last April in order to start all the procedures to get his child back.
In Norway, the mother is accused of kidnapping and their son is wanted internationally: "I am very worried about him. If I do not take him home, I do not know what to do", said the child's father, who since 2018, when he divorced his Greek wife, had the daily care and responsibility of their son.
At the same time, the mother had moved to another Norwegian town, Sørlandet, to study. Nevertheless, the dispute between them continued, with the result that in the summer of 2020, the mother, according to the publication, illegally transported her child to Greece.
In order to get her son out of Norway, she managed to get the Norwegian police to issue a passport to her child, without the father knowing. She had forged his signature.
The father, after the abduction, continued to prosecute her, with the result that the Norwegian court assigned the sole parental responsibility to him. With this decision the police had begun internationally searching for the child.
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