Grandfather of Eitan Biran gets suspended jail sentence in plea deal over kidnapping
Italian court orders Shmuel Peleg to pay 50,000 euros toward child’s health, educational costs following bitter custody dispute after boy’s parents were killed in cable car crash
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The grandfather of an Israeli boy orphaned in a cable car crash in Italy last year was given a 20-month suspended sentence by an Italian court on Thursday for kidnapping the child and briefly bringing him back to Israel.
Six-year-old Eitan Biran was living in Italy at the time of the cable car crash that killed his parents, his younger brother and his great-grandparents. Following the crash, he became the subject of a bitter custody fight between his Italy-based paternal family and his Israel-based maternal family.
Biran’s relatives were among 14 people killed when a cable car slammed into a mountainside in northern Italy in May 2021.
At the time of the crash, Biran and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, and his younger brother, Tom, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine.
After an Italian court temporarily granted the paternal family custody, Biran’s maternal grandfather, Shmuel Peleg, secretly smuggled the boy to Israel via Switzerland, prompting charges of kidnapping. Israel’s Supreme Court ordered him sent back in December, rejecting a final appeal from the family.
Under the plea deal, the court on Thursday gave Peleg a suspended sentence and ordered him to pay 50,000 euros toward Eitan’s health and educational costs.
When he was released from a Turin hospital following weeks of treatment after the accident, Italian juvenile court officials ruled the child would live with a paternal aunt, Aya Biran, near Pavia, in northern Italy.
Following the abduction, an Italian court issued an international arrest warrant for Peleg, and he was summoned for questioning by Israeli police and released under restrictions.
Another Israeli man, Gabriel Abutbul Alon, who is accused of driving Peleg and the child in a rental car to Switzerland, was also named in the arrest warrant.
Italian prosecutors accused Peleg and Alon of having planned and executed the crime “with lucid premeditation and meticulous organization.”
Peleg maintains that he was operating in the best interests of the boy and seeking to carry out his parents’ wishes.
Alon was arrested by police in Cyprus last November. Law enforcement officials said they believed Alon’s extradition to Italy could take some time if he opts to fight it during court proceedings.
The Times of Israel Community.