Interpol Puts Swedish Abduction Suspect on Most-Wanted List

Interpol Puts Swedish Abduction Suspect on Most-Wanted List

Interpol has issued a "red notice" for the father of a young Swedish girl allegedly abducted by him and taken to Cambodia. The girl is also probably still being hidden in Cambodia by her father, the deputy director of Cambodia's Interpol division said Mar 20.

Maria Elfversson, the mother of sixyear-old Alicia Elfversson, last week visited Thailand and Cambodia to appeal for help from the media and the public to locate her daughter. She has said she believes her daughter has been taken to Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam.

"My despair is endless. Day and night I think of Alicia," said Elfversson in a personal press release calling for new leads. "I will never give up the fight to find my beloved daughter."

In June 2007, Alicia's Norwegian father, Torgeir Nordbo, 47, told Elfversson he was taking Alicia for a 14-day visit to his family in Norway, claims the press release. Just two weeks later local businesspeople told The Mekong Times they spotted him in public with Alicia in Sihanoukville. Her mother has not seen her since.

Since he left with Alicia the father was charged with abduction in Sweden; but Mar 3 Interpol issued a red notice, revealed Interpol Cambodia, significantly raising the case's level of urgency. A red notice allows a warrant to be circulated worldwide with the request that the wanted person be arrested with a view to extradition.

The Interpol red note, seen by The Mekong Times, says that, if located, Alicia must be taken into the care of social welfare services immediately and her father handed over to authorities.

"We must catch him … what he has done is illegal in Cambodia," said Colonel Hor Kim Rong, deputy director of Cambodia's Interpol, adding that his division has been working on the case since 2007, but will restart operations on a larger scale since it has received the red notice.

However, he was unaware that Elfversson was in Cambodia at the time and said she had not contacted him. According to local media, she has since left Cambodia. Hor Kim Rong said that the Interpol's office is linked to passport control and border checkpoints and the escalation of the case makes it unlikely the father and daughter have been able to leave the country, though he added that they had slipped in and out of Cambodia two or three times in 2007."If he'd left, we would know," assured Hor Kim Rong.

Henrik Olsson, the owner of The Small Hotel, a well-known Scandinavian meeting place in Sihanoukville, said he had never met Nordbo directly, adding that it was unlikely that he would visit his establishment as it would be "too obvious".

He said he had been contacted by both the Swedish Embassy and the Swedish press but was able to offer them little information. However, he did speculate that Nordbo may have taken Alicia to Cambodia's southeastern province of Kampot, as he would be too visible in Sihanoukville's small expatriate community and this would accord with reports in the Swedish press that the pair were traveling in a car.

The owner of Sihanoukville bar The Angkor Arms confirmed that Nordbo and Alicia had been frequenting her bar from as early as July 2007, a mere two weeks after he allegedly abducted her from Sweden. Describing him as appearing to be the "perfect" father, The Angkor Arms' owner said that Nordbo had brought Alicia to her bar regularly but disappeared last month when local police and a troop of Swedish tabloid journalists began nosing around. Thai media reports claim that, while in Sihanoukville Nordbo had cut Alicia's hair short and dressed her in boy's clothes, speculating that this was an attempt to disguise her.

Craig Guthrie is a reporter for The Mekong Times

This article first appeared in The Mekong Times
The Mekong Times is a daily newspaper distributed in Cambodia.
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