[ Level 1 Summary (simple) ]
<< Before the announcement of the abduction: significant difficulties with family reunification (moderately useful for understanding)
>> Next: 2 - the investigation is blocked by a colonel at the embassy
While we had been struggling for 4 years to obtain family reunification for my wife's two daughters who remained in Congo, the family there informed us that one of the girls had been kidnapped by unknown persons as she left school.
We suspect it will be a ransom demand. My wife is going to Kinshasa to prepare to negotiate with the kidnappers, while from France, my father and I are contacting various organizations, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Exchanges with the French Embassy and a colonel, the internal security attaché
A senior official, Jean-Pierre Galland, replied to us and put us in touch with French Colonel Bernard Tomalak, with whom we would be in contact almost daily, or at least weekly: through telephone calls, emails and face-to-face meetings with my wife at the French Embassy in Kinshasa.
The ransom was paid after one month and the child was released.
It took us almost a month, until March 17, 2008, to raise and send 40,000 US dollars. Meanwhile, Colonel Tomalak confirmed the kidnapping.
Two members of my family paid the ransom:
- my grandmother, Odette Lilamand, for more than 30,000 euros including additional costs,
- and my father's partner, Elena Dao Castes, around 12,000 or 15,000 euros (due to exchange and transfer fees).
We would only discover this years later: the colonel had an obligation to open an investigation as soon as a crime (a kidnapping in this case) was reported, even if part of the events took place outside the national territory, because it was us, the French, who were the primary targets.
Not only did this colonel not open an investigation, but above all he asked that obstacles be put in place to cover up the affair .
Twelve years later, in 2020, these same gendarmes or police officers who took over the case went so far as to continue to create false documents to have me convicted and sent to asylum.
To go further...
>> Creation, in 2008, of a website about kidnapping (external link)
>> 2 - The investigation is blocked by a colonel with powerful connections