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ACCIDENT

Ten tourists injured in Norway island boat crash

Ten British tourists have been injured in Norway after a high-speed boat crash propelled them into the icy sea “like dolls”.

Ten tourists injured in Norway island boat crash
The tourists spent 15 minutes in the Arctic waters. Photo: Gunnar Berg/NTB scanpix
Norwegian police said a total of 24 people, including three local crew, had been on board the rigid-inflatable boat when it collided with Selbanes Sail, an ornamental fountain at the harbour entrance in Harstad, north of the Arctic Circle. 
 
Nils Mehren, a local reporter with Norway’s state broadcaster NRK, said that the impact had thrown people into the sea “like dolls”, according to news agency AP. A following boat was also caught up in the accident. 
 
Local police said that two of those involved in the accident had been seriously injured, including the boat's driver.
 
Four of the tourists were still being treated in hospital in Harstad on midday Friday, NRK reported. 
 
“Two of them are slightly injured and will be discharged during the day. One has moderate injuries and one is still seriously injured, but stable,” Per Christian Johansen, press officer at the University Hospital of Northern Norway, told NRK.  Another victim is bring treated at a hospital in Tromsø. 
 
After the collision, which took place at 3pm, ten British tourists and the boat's driver spent 15 minutes in the icy water.
 
Local police chief Tom Harder Johannessen told NRK on Friday that the investigation into the accident would be passed to a neighbouring force.
 
“The reason for this is that the company that operates the boat involved is owned by two policemen in Harstad. One is retired, while the other is still working for the police,” he said.  
 
The tourists, who arrived in Norway on Wednesday, had been on the “Arctic Fjord” package tour arranged by the travel company Inghams. 
 
Harstad is the main town on Hinnoya, Norway’s largest coastal island, and is the gateway to the Lofoten Islands, a popular tourist attraction. 
 

ACCIDENT

Cable car survivor must be returned to family in Italy, Israel court rules

An Israeli court ruled Monday that a boy whose parents died in an Italian cable car crash be returned to family in Italy, after his grandfather was accused of illegally bringing him to Israel.

Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021
Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The battle for custody of Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the May accident that killed 14 people, has captured headlines since his maternal grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, brought him to Israel on a private jet last month.

The child lost his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents in the May 23 accident near the top of the Mottarone mountain in the northwestern Piedmont region, where the family was out on a Sunday excursion to the scenic spot served by the cable car.

The cable car’s pull cable snapped just before it reached destination. It then flew backwards, dislodging itself from a second, supporting cable, and crashed to the ground.

Investigations later revealed that emergency brakes that could have stopped the car on its supporting cable, avoiding the tragedy, had been deliberately deactivated to avoid delays following a technical malfunction.

Three individuals responsible for the cable car’s management were subsequently arrested.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

Peleg has insisted that he drove Eitan from Italy to Switzerland before jetting him back to Israel – instead of returning him paternal aunt Aya Biran, who lives in northern Italy – because Eitan’s late parents wanted him to be raised in the Jewish state.

But Peleg has become the subject kidnapping probe by Italian prosecutors and Israeli police questioned him over those allegations last month.

A statement Monday from the Tel Aviv court where Aya Biran had filed a complaint said judges “did not accept the grandfather’s claim that the aunt has no custody rights”.

It recognised an Italian judgement that established Biran as a legitimate guardian and said Peleg had “unlawfully” removed the boy from his aunt’s care.

The court “ordered the return of the minor to his usual place of residence in Italy”.

The court also found that “a connection” between the surviving members of the Italy- and Israel-based relatives was in Eitan’s “best interests”.

Peleg was also ordered to pay Biran’s legal fees, amounting to 70,000 shekels ($22,000).

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Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021.

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The case has stirred emotions in Israel, and throngs of journalists had surrounded the Tel Aviv court for hearings last month, with some pro-Peleg protesters insisting it was wrong to send a Jewish child out of Israel.

Before judges ordered the sides to stop talking to the media, Peleg told Israel’s Channel 12 in September that his grandson was “in the place where he is supposed to be, in his home, in Israel.”

Eitan and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine, together with their other child, Tom.

Eitan suffered severe chest and abdominal injuries and spent a week in intensive care after the May accident that occurred when a cable snapped on the aerial tram bringing weekend visitors to the top of the Piedmont region’s Mottarone mountain.

The accident was one of Italy’s worst in over two decades.   

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