German couple confesses to kidnapping Romani infant

News server Aktuálně.cz reports that the Deutsche-Presse Agentur has released the information that the state prosecutor in Koblenz, Germany has received a confession from the German couple responsible for kidnapping Michala Janová. The Romani infant was just a few weeks old when she was snatched from the village of Trmice in the Ústí Region of the Czech Republic.

A 50-year-old man from Thuringia took the little girl straight from her pram in front of her mother on 4 July. He and a female partner (age 47) then drove the infant to the German town of Neuwied, not far from Koblenz. Along the way their car was spotted by several police cameras. The kidnappers had covered up the original German license plate on their rented vehicle with a stolen Czech one, but the stolen one fell off. German police officers were then able to trace the vehicle to the rental agency.

Police found the kidnapped child in an apartment in Neuwied. They then arrested three German women and one German man in relation to the case. Two of those arrested were taken into custody. One of them, the 50-year-old man, is the father of two adult children.

The German authorities did not want to hand the kidnapped infant over to the woman claiming to be her mother until a DNA test unambiguously confirmed the two were actually related. The little girl, now a month old, returned to Trmice with her mother yesterday.

Police are still investigating the motivation for the crime. There are three scenarios - either the kidnapping was completely random, or it was premeditated, or it took place within the community. However, for the time being police do not want to release any details of the case in order not to endanger the ongoing investigation.