There is an agreement between the Biran family and the Peleg family to “manage” Eitan’s routine from now to 8 October. This was announced by the lawyers of the Biran family at the end of the first hearing in the Tel Aviv court. At the same time, the judge decided to resume the hearings starting from 8 October for three consecutive days. According to the agreement reached, little Eitan will be able to stay (until 8 October), half the time with his maternal family and half the time with his aunt Aya, legal guardian, with intervals, according to what is reported by legal sources, of three days each for each family branch.
In the meantime – the lawyers explained – the families have asked for a total blackout to protect the child. At present, therefore, Eitan remains in Israel, at least until the hearings resume. The agreements reached are aimed at maintaining “the child’s privacy, safety, integrity and tranquility”. “We will not publish any information either on the content of the hearing or on Eitan’s health conditions and we ask the press to do the same.” The hearing was therefore adjourned to 8 October, with the possibility that it will also take place in the following two days.
None of the child’s relatives, neither aunt Aja Biran, nor grandfather Shmuel Peleg nor grandmother Etty Peleg Cohen, made statements at the end of the hearing, in the spirit of what was agreed. All appeared extremely tried and moved by the trial.
The child is disputed by the family of his paternal aunt, Aya Biran, who lives in Italy and who had been custody of the child after the death of his parents, and the maternal one, Eitan’s grandmother, Etty Peleg Cohen, her daughter Gali Peleg who in recent weeks he announced his intention to adopt Eitan, and Shmuel Peleg, maternal grandfather who brought the baby to Israel and is under investigation in Pavia for aggravated kidnapping.
Process behind closed doors
“I want to see Eitan at home,” said Aja Biran, the child’s paternal aunt, at the courthouse entrance. Yesterday the aunt confided to the media that she had confidence: an interlocutory decision is fine, pending a definitive measure that orders the return to Italy. “I’m worried about him, I want to bring him home as soon as possible,” added Aya Biran visibly excited. Regarding the maternal branch of the family, it is reiterated that Eitan “must remain in Israel”. The judge allowed only Shmuel Peleg and Aja Biran to be present in the courtroom, the rest of the family was let out. The hearing takes place behind closed doors.
The positions of families
His paternal uncles claim that Eitan Biran was kidnapped by his grandfather and must be taken back to Italy where he has always lived. On the other hand, his maternal grandparents think that there has been no kidnapping, because his parents, who died last May 23, wanted to bring him back to Israel, which is his real home. At the center of the heated battle, the fate of a six-year-old child, the only survivor of the Mottarone tragedy.
On September 5th, Eitan was secretly brought to Israel by his grandfather, with the alleged complicity of the child’s ex-wife and grandmother, Etty Peleg Cohen; both are under investigation for kidnapping of minors, together with the driver of the car who took them from Italy to Switzerland to embark for Tel Aviv.
The legal team of his paternal aunt Aya, recognized by an Italian judge as foster, filed an application under the Hague Convention to bring him back to Italy: this is his “natural residence” where he grew up, Italian is the his mother tongue and it is there that his rehabilitation process takes place after the tragedy in which he lost his parents, argue lawyers Avi Chimi and Shmuel Moran. The lawyers also recall that grandfather Peleg was convicted of domestic violence over twenty years ago, and was interrogated by the police and placed under house arrest for four days after returning to Israel with Eitan.
The Peleg family, represented by Boaz Ben Tzur and Ronen Daliahu, is of a completely different opinion: there has been no kidnapping, it is not a child disputed between two parents, given that the mother and father are dead and therefore the Hague Convention has nothing to do with this. As for the natural place for Eitan, the Peleg lawyers insist, the parents had been planning for some time to return to live in Israel after their father’s medical studies in Italy, considered a temporary stop; the child’s home is therefore Israel, where he spent a few months a year every year and where his parents had already bought a house and looked for a school for him. The custody and adoption requests made by maternal aunt Tal, who appeared in court with her husband Ron Peri, were not dealt with this morning.