Israeli court orders Eitan Biran to returned to Italy
TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli court Monday ordered a
6-year-old boy who survived a cable car crash in Italy to be returned to his
relatives there, who have been locked in a bitter custody battle with family
members in Israel.
The court ordered Eitan Biran returned to “the place of his normal
residence, which is Italy.” It ordered his grandfather, who had brought him to
Israel against the wishes of his family members in Italy, to pay around $20,000
in expenses and attorney fees.
Biran’s parents and younger sibling were among 14 killed in
May when a cable car slammed into a mountainside in northern Italy. He has been
the focus of a custody battle between his maternal grandparents in Israel and
his paternal relatives in Italy.
Biran’s paternal relatives say he was taken without their
knowledge and they had filed a legal complaint in Italy seeking his return.
His grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, has defended his decision to
spirit the boy away, saying it was in the child’s best interest. He drove Biran
to Switzerland without the other relatives’ knowledge before flying him back to
Israel.
Eitan and his parents were living in Italy at the time of
the accident. After his release from a Turin hospital following weeks of
treatment, Italian juvenile court officials ruled the child would live with a
paternal aunt, Aya Biran, near Pavia, in northern Italy.
In Monday’s ruling, Judge Iris Ilotovich-Segal of the Tel
Aviv family court said Biran’s residence was in Italy, where his family moved
when he was only a month old. She concluded that his relocation to Israel was
unlawful and violated the guardianship rights of his aunt.
The judge also called on the family to reconcile, saying “there
is supreme importance in focusing on the medical and emotional condition of the
minor and giving him the support, treatment and embrace he needs following the
tragedy that befell him and his family.”
The Peleg family said the decision doesn’t address questions
concerning “the well-being and future of the child.” In a statement, they said
they would “continue to fight in all ways possible for Eitan’s benefit, welfare
and rights to grow up in Israel as his parents hoped.”
Biran’s paternal relatives welcomed the ruling in a
statement, saying “there are no victors and no vanquished, no winners and no
losers.”
“There is only Eitan. All that we ask now is that Eitan
returns home quickly, to friends and to school, to his family and especially to
the therapeutic and educational frameworks that he needs.”
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