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CRIME

Kids abandoned in Italy head home with grandparents

Three young children abandoned by a German couple in Italy will return home with their grandparents on Friday. Police have released their mother after she was found with her fugitive boyfriend this week.

Kids abandoned in Italy head home with grandparents
Photo: DPA

The couple, Ina Caterina Remhof, 26, and Sascha Schmidt, 24, were picked up on Thursday in a forest near Aosta, where they left the mother’s children in a pizzeria after telling the manager they were stepping out for a cigarette.

When Remhof and Schmidt didn’t return to the restaurant, police discovered they had left their personal documents in their vehicle and fled the area. The Italian authorities feverishly patrolled borders, train stations and airports to find the couple.

Remhof, who media reports say left the children because she didn’t know how she would manage to feed them, has not yet seen her children – who range in age from 10-months to 4-years-old.

A district court in Lennestadt conducted an emergency proceeding to deny the 26-year-old mother Remhof custody while she was still missing, news magazine Der Spiegel reported. Their biological father is in prison, convicted of shaking a baby to death in 2006, the magazine said.

Meanwhile her boyfriend Schmidt remains in police custody after it was revealed that he was a fugitive. According to the Siegen district prosecutor’s office, Schmidt is supposed to be serving a long sentence for blackmail. He did not return from a two-day parole from prison in early April, authorities said.

Italian authorities have filed charges against Remhof for abandoning minors, meanwhile German prosecutors have said they will not file charges until they complete their investigation.

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BUSINESS

Elon Musk visits Tesla’s sabotage-hit German factory

Elon Musk travelled Wednesday to Tesla's factory near Berlin to lend his workers "support" after the plant was forced to halt production by a suspected arson attack on nearby power lines.

Elon Musk visits Tesla's sabotage-hit German factory

The Tesla CEO addressed thousands of employees on arrival at the site, accusing “eco-terrorists” of the sabotage as he defended his company’s green credentials.

With his son X AE A-XII in his arms, Musk said: “I am here to support you.”

The billionaire’s visit came a week after power lines supplying the electric carmaker’s only European plant were set on fire in an act of sabotage claimed by a far-left group called the Vulkangruppe (Volcano Group).

READ ALSO: Far-left group claims ‘sabotage’ on Tesla’s German factory

Musk had said then that the attack was “extremely dumb”, while the company said it would cost it several hundred million euros.

A week on, the lights have come back on at the site, but Andre Thierig, who heads the site, said on LinkedIn that it would “take a bit of time” before production is back to full speed.

Industry experts have warned that the reputational impact caused by the sabotage on the region could be more severe than the losses suffered by Tesla.

Tesla’s German plant started production in 2022 following an arduous two-year approval and construction process dogged by administrative and legal obstacles.

Tesla wants to expand the site by 170 hectares and boost production up to one million vehicles annually to feed Europe’s growing demand for electric cars and take on rivals who are shifting away from combustion engine vehicles.

But the plans have annoyed local residents, who voted against the project in a non-binding ballot last month.

After the vote, Tesla said it might have to rethink the plans. Environmental activists opposed to the expansion of the factory have recently also set up a camp in a wooded area near the plant.

READ ALSO: Why is Tesla’s expansion near Berlin so controversial?

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