Clara and Lara are unrecognizable
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Fugitive kidnapping couple come forward via video with missing daughters
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Lawyer Stephan Schultheiss (right) with a local authority representative on Wednesday in Asunción (Paraguay).
Photo: dpa/Nath Aguilar
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Asuncion In the case of the two missing German girls in Paraguay, the alleged kidnappers’ parents have now reported via video. They call on the German authorities to stop the search. Meanwhile, a witness who is said to have helped the couple was heard.
In the case of the two missing German girls in Paraguay, the Attorney General of the South American country has reported a first successful search. The agency announced Wednesday that police had arrested and questioned the owner of a vehicle in which the two girls were traveling across the country with a couple from Germany. The witness was released again. Meanwhile, the fugitive couple reported via video message.
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Reiniger-Egler’s lawyer confirmed on Wednesday that the fugitive couple had spoken the day before with a video message via the Internet service Telegram, in which they asked Clara’s mother to stop the search. “They demand from our clients that they give up their children and leave them behind,” said lawyer Stephan Schultheiss. His clients would “hardly recognize their children on the videos”. Clara’s hair was cut short and dyed. “She didn’t seem comfortable,” Schultheiss said. That hit her mother “very badly”.
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The vehicle owner, named Diego Martínez, is said to have rented a van to the German Andreas Rainer Egler. Egler, a suspected opponent of the corona vaccinations, traveled to Paraguay in November with his ten-year-old daughter Clara. Both were accompanied by Egler’s new wife Anna Maria Egler and their eleven-year-old daughter Lara Valentina. According to Paraguayan prosecutors, the adults had taken the girls to the South American country without the consent of the other parent.
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“The suspect made several contradictions,” said Police Commissioner Cristian Cáceres. “First he said the couple had been introduced to him by a relative, but then he said it was a client.” According to Martínez, he works as a car mechanic in the city of Villarrica, southeast of the capital Asunción.
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“The man gave a lot of information,” said prosecutor Carina Sánchez. “There were some issues that forced us to arrest him, but it was for the sole purpose of him providing all the information he has about this couple.” Martínez was finally released in the afternoon.
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“We are convinced that the girls and the couple are still in Paraguay,” Mario Vallejos, chief of the Paraguay Police Anti-Kidnapping Unit, said on Wednesday. However, he fears that they could emigrate to neighboring Argentina or Brazil.
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The vehicle owner Martínez is also under suspicion because of a “bank transfer to a third party on behalf of the Germans”. “There is a third person who helps the child’s parents,” Vallejos said.
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The girls were last seen on January 19, according to Paraguayan authorities. There is a suspicion that they are being kept hidden in a settlement of German opponents of vaccination. During the corona pandemic, Paraguay developed into a destination for Germans who strictly reject the corona regulations in their home country.
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On Monday, the mother of the missing Clara, Anne Maja Reiniger-Egler, addressed the population at a joint press conference with representatives of the Paraguayan authorities and desperately asked for help in finding her daughter Clara.
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“Please have a heart for our girls and help us in our search,” Reiniger-Egler said in Spanish, his voice broken. Addressing her ex-husband Andreas Rainer Egler, she said he should “put an end to this nightmare” and get in touch with her.
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Investigations are also underway in Germany: the public prosecutor’s office in Essen accuses Andreas Rainer Egler and his current wife of child abduction, as a spokeswoman said. The kidnapping of both children is being investigated because the girls were brought to Paraguay without the consent of the parent who stayed in Germany.
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