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Education Ministry Opens Inquiry After 9-Year-Old Found Locked in Van in Alsace

A judge ordered the boy’s father held in pretrial detention for one year.

Overview

  • The Education Ministry opened an administrative review Tuesday to ask why no alert was raised when the boy was not re-enrolled after a family move, a duty shared by schools and town halls under French rules.
  • The father, charged with aggravated sequestration and privation of care, was ordered Monday into pretrial detention for one year by a Mulhouse judge.
  • Gendarmes discovered the child on April 6 in a van in Hagenbach after a neighbor reported hearing child noises, and he was found naked, severely malnourished, unable to walk, and remains hospitalized in Mulhouse.
  • The father's partner was charged with failure to assist a minor in danger and failure to report abuse and was placed under judicial supervision.
  • Child-protection authorities placed the household’s other minors under provisional care, a judicial investigation is underway under instruction secrecy, and child-rights groups plan to join the case to probe possible system failures.