Budapest, Hungary - The father of a three-year-old who was kidnapped in March in southern France, was reunited with his daughter on Monday in Hungary after police arrested the girl's mother.
"The father arrived in the afternoon to pick up little Elise and said he would return with her to France immediately," said Tamasne Makara, director of childcare facilities in Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg county.
Three-year-old Elise Andre, at the centre of an international custody battle between her French father Jean-Michel and her Russian mother Irina Belenkaya, was abducted by two men and a woman in the southern French city of Arles on March 20.
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Her father, who was badly beaten during the kidnapping, later told AFP that the woman - dressed in black and wearing a wig - was certainly his estranged wife, from whom he split in 2007.
Interpol issued a search notice for the toddler on March 22 after France alerted police across Europe.
Following this Belenkaya was arrested by Hungarian police with her daughter on Sunday at the Ukrainian border.
"Early on Sunday afternoon a Russian citizen with a small girl wanted to pass the Hungarian-Ukrainian border by car at Tiszabecs in eastern Hungary," said Gergely Fulop, a spokesperson for the Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg county police.
"The border guard checked the Schengen database and found the woman was wanted for a criminal act while the small child, born in 2005, had been reported missing," Fulop said.
"The woman was taken into custody in Nyiregyhaza, while the child is in a child care institution," he added.
Elise was placed in a nearby childcare facility at Nyirszolos, where she was reunited on Monday afternoon with her father after he submitted proof that he was her legal guardian.
"She recovers really quickly, she was very confused," Andre said in a phone conversation with his lawyer.
The toddler was heard in the background saying "I'm tired, daddy."
It was still unclear when the two would return to France.
The saga has been complicated by a Russian court awarding Belenkaya custody rights, while French authorities say Elise is in her father's custody.
After Interpol issued the search notice for the three-year-old, Russian authorities said they would inform the French if she turned up in Russia but warned that they would not arrest the mother.
Andre himself abducted Elise from a street in Moscow last year after Belenkaya took her to Russia against his will and in defiance of a French court ruling.
His lawyer said on Monday his client now wanted to "avoid causing further distress to the child."
"He wants his daughter to have a more or less normal life," he added. "He does not want another round of trench warfare against the mother."
A French government source said: "The French authorities, together with the Russian authorities, will try in the next few days to find a solution with the family that is in the child's best interests." - AFP
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