internaional manhunt Danish mum wanted on child abduction charges in US found to be living in Ireland after car crash

A DANISH woman subject to an international manhunt after being hit with child abduction charges in the US was found in Ireland after being involved in a car crash.

The woman was only detected after the owner of a property damaged in the single-car accident in Co Carlow carried out an online search for her name and discovered a missing children alert on Facebook.

She separated from her American husband in 2017 and was given permission by a US court to bring her two daughters on a summer holiday to her native Denmark the following year.

However, the woman decided she would not be returning the children to their father, who was later granted full custody.

The father pursued the issue through the Danish courts, which ruled in October 2018 that the children should be returned to him in the US.

The woman then vanished with the children and deleted her email account, leading to an alert being attached to her passport.

Details of the tug-of-love case emerged in the High Court, which last week approved her extradition to the US where she faces parental abduction charges in Mississippi.

The court did not name the woman to protect the identity of her two children.

Fled

She is believed to have travelled from Denmark to Germany and from there to Ireland, where she is thought to have lived in Athy, Co Kildare.

According to a written ruling by Mr Justice Paul Burns, after a Danish court ruled in favour of the father, an arrangement was made for the children to be handed over to him in Copenhagen in February 2019.

However, the woman fled Denmark with the children.

A criminal investigation was launched by authorities there but her whereabouts could not be established.

Then on September 12, 2019, the woman was arrested in Co Carlow for a road traffic offence after being involved in an accident.

The owner of the property damaged in the accident contacted the children's father after doing an online search for the woman's name.

The woman was arrested again on October 7, pursuant to a provisional arrest request from the US, and the children were returned to their father the same month.

US Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was among politicians thanked by the children's father for their support.

The woman subsequently opposed a request for her extradition to the US, claiming there was no public interest in her surrender, that she would not receive legal aid there and would be exposed to a risk of torture, inhuman or degrading conditions due to the environment in detention centres in Mississippi.

However, her concerns were contradicted by a report provided to the court by an expert on the criminal justice system there. The expert said that while prisons were unpleasant, they were not dangerous and the woman would receive a fair trial.

Mr Justice Burns dismissed the woman's objections and found she could be extradited.

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Online Editors