Mia, 8, was abducted by three men on Tuesday while at her grandmother’s house – SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP
Three days after the kidnapping in the Vosges of Mia Montemaggi, the 8-year-old girl and her mother have still not been found, said the public prosecutor of Epinal, Nicolas Heitz, this Friday, adding that the track departure abroad was “not excluded”.
Four men, including the three alleged kidnappers, were taken into custody, the prosecutor said at a press conference at the Epinal courthouse. According to their statements, they acted at the request of the mother of the child who wanted to recover her daughter of whom she no longer had custody, added the magistrate.
Explosive elements discovered
“Lola Montemaggi solicited them via the Internet to recover her daughter from whom she considered herself unjustly separated in order to go abroad”, explained Nicolas Heitz who had triggered the Kidnapping Alert plan on Tuesday evening. “Their hearings are generally consistent,” he added, adding that one of them did not want to speak. Aged 23 to 60 years old and without a criminal record, the four men must be presented to a judge during the day, were arrested in Paris, Seine-et-Marne, Lilas (Seine-Saint-Denis) and Meurthe -and-Moselle.
The “script of a speech to be held in front of Mia’s grandmother to pretend to be an educator” of the Youth Judicial Protection was discovered in the first of them to have been arrested. In the 23-year-old suspect, “elements likely to enter into the composition of explosives were discovered”, indicated Nicolas Heitz, specifying that this aspect of the investigation was now in the hands of the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat ).
A survivalist movement
A preliminary investigation entrusted to the PNAT was already underway concerning these individuals whose profile, according to a source familiar with the matter, “is similar to the survivalist movement”. Mia Montemaggi was kidnapped Tuesday by three men, by cunning and without violence, while she was staying with her maternal grandmother, designated since January “trusted third party” by justice, in the village of Poulières, at about thirty kilometers from Epinal.
Her mother, Lola Montemaggi, 28, who was no longer allowed to see Mia alone and “wanted to live on the margins of society”, has also since disappeared. Two of the kidnappers – a third who stayed behind the wheel of the vehicle that took the child – pretended to be child welfare officials, with Department of Justice letterhead, in order to put in confidence the grandmother of the child. Anyone with information about this kidnapping is invited to call 0 800 36 32 68.