A teenage girl whose forceful bundling into a BMW in the south of France sparked a nationwide appeal for witnesses was the victim of a traditional Chechen pre-marriage kidnapping, it emerged Friday. Witnesses told how three people in a BMW snatched the previously unidentified girl, aged 16 or 17, as she left a park with a companion.
The manner of her disappearance led to a nationwide appeal for witnesses in a bid to find the girl. Police received calls from as far afield as Belgium and Switzerland from people who thought they might have seen her. An umbrella she left at the scene of the “crime” was sent to a laboratory for analysis. Police eventually managed to identify the girl and trace her family, where they found her unharmed Thursday, a source close to the enquiry told.
Her family explained that she had simply fallen victim to the Chechen tradition whereby the groom’s family kidnaps the bride-to-be ahead of the wedding.
