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Show 4A The Salt Lake Tribune Sunday, September X 3fl, 1984 After Months and Miles of Searching, Child Mother Finds Parent-Nappe- d The incidents appear to be increasi- By Fred Bayles Associated Press Writer ng. - Deborah BROOKLINE. Mass. Steiner van Rooyen considers herself one of the lucky cr.es. After eight weeks, 10,000 miles and $20,000, she tracked her estranged husband and abducted daughter to a suburban bungalow in Pretoria, South Africa, where police recovered the child. Prlmavera Garrido was less fortunate. She found her daughter in Roquetas, a tiny seaside village near Barcelona, Spain. But when she tried to take the child, Nelly, her inlaws attacked her. While she waited for the local courts to act, her husband and child vanished a second time. Garrido is still searching, haunted by the memory of her missing daughter. Your whole world just seems to fall apart," she says. I'll wake up in the middle of the night and think, Nellys not here. The two women are among the growing ranks of parents whose children have been taken overseas, kidnapped by their foreign parent. Their stories are strikingly similar. A quick romance and marriage to a foreign national; a child, an acrimonious divorce. Then one day, the estranged parent snatches the child away to the sanctuary of his or her native land, protected by conflicting laws and red tape. Its much harder when the children are taken overseas, says Richard Stenzel, the head of a California detective agency that specializes in recovering parent-napped- chil- " dren. Youve got citizenship priorities. That country may feel it owes some allegiance to that person. The State Departments Bureau of Consular Affairs is investigating 1,429 cases of international child abduction. An estimated 691 American children are believed to be in Europe. 24,9 were taken to the Mideast, 50 to Africa, 86 to Asia and 353 are believed in Latin America. We started counting cases In 1980 and each year the number of cases doubles, says a State Department official who asked not to be named. We dont know if Its a new problem or if people are just finding out they can contact us." Steiner van Rooyen thinks the numbers may be higher. "Many people dont know who to call," she says. As a result, she formed the International Child Abduction Information and Search Agency, an organization she thinks can help parents find their missing children. The struggling agency was formed in May and already has received more than 100 calls. "Were trying to establish a major network of police, lawyers and repushe says. With table detectives, what took me two months and 300 names, I can give someone help in a few hours. A photographer and graphic artist, van Rooyen met her husband while on assignment in South Africa. They married, moved to the Boston area and had a child, Kierie. The couple divorced two years later. A month after the divorce, her husband failed to return from a weekend with their daughter. He left a note that read, Tve taken Kierie and gone to South Africa. If you try to find me I will travel further. Local police hesitated, reluctant to get involved in a domestic problem. They told van Rooyen her husband would be back. She tried the FBI; they couldnt act until local police brought kidnapping charges. By that time her child was in South Africa. Steiner van Rooyen ran up a $1,000 phone bill, calling everyone I could think of in South Africa." In desperation, she called the South African national police and found a sympathetic ear. A week later she flew to Cape Town to continue the search with money borrowed from friends. In the weeks that followed, as police investigated dead-enleads, she d received custody of the child from the South African courts and told het story in the South African newspapers. The coverage prompted a phone call from her husband. His call was the key. Authorities traced him to Pretoria, and then with the help of a detective and local to a friends home. police Following a dramatic chase and confrontation, van Rooyen was reunited with Kierie. The experience convinced her that parents in such a situation must travel overseas to recover their child. "People told me to wait for the authorities. There are no authorities, she says. No one will look for a child unless you show up on their doorstep with tears in your eyes and find a policeman. Primavera Garrldos story mirrors van Rooyens. A Wellesley student, she met her Spanish husband in France. The two married and had two children. Then came the divorce. On April 1, her husband vanished with her daughter. Garrido flew to Spain and found s her daughter at her home. She didnt recognize her own child at first. Her long hair was cut and she had lost 10 pounds," she recalls. She finally identified her own child by a mole on her thigh In an angry confrontation that followed, Garrido was attacked by her brother-in-laand threatened with death. Police offered little help. In Spain, the husband nearly always wins custody of the children. But the situation was enough to panic her husband. Within days he went underground with the child. Garrido goes back to Spain this fall to continue her search. There is little authorities can do sister-in-law- once the child is out of the country. US. officials can put a stop on a child's passport; embassy staff members will try to locate a child in a foreign country. But they have no authority to recover the child. Essentially, if there is a custody .v f " 3 - a " ypf ' " ' i l , ??oi Y' VV4 T Associated Press Photo lasted two months and cost $20,000. Kier-te- r ies father had taken her to South Africa. Deborah Steiner van Rooyen and daugh- Kierie are reunited after a search that decree, it has no validity in that foreign country, says the State Department official. That is where men like Richard Stenzel come in. The California-base- d private investigator has worked on the fringes of the law to return nearly 100 children. His tactics include subtle pressure, and sometimes gentle persuasion bribery. But Stenzel says children are never There are ways to go about it that seem to simplify matters, he says. But we always take the attitude that we're in the right that were repred parent." senting the In one case in Ecuador, Stenzel had several posters printed of the father, the equivaoffering a $500 reward lent of the average annual income in for the man's capture. that country "We told the fathers attorney that we had 10,000 posters printed and that we would not be responsible for some hungry person who was eager for the reward," he recalls. The father was happy to return the child." court-recognize- Because nearly 90 percent of abductions are the work of fathers, Stenzel will look for a sypathetic policewoman or female social worker to take his clients side. About 100 percent of the time you can find something derogative about he says. the restraining father, There might be a warrant for arrest, a bad check, a record of parking tickets. You can blow those up and make law enforcement in his country agree that he is a criminal." Stenzel's help costs money. His minimum fee is $8,500, plus expenses. It can easily cost a parent $30,000 to recover a child. Stenzel only takes cases he thinks he can solve. He signs a contract guaranteeing results and places the money in escrow in case he fails. But parents can fall victim to other operators who take money without getting results. The parents are very vulnerable," Stenzel says. "They are led down the garden path by these things. The task of recovering an abducted child may be made easier by the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of Parental Child Abduction, a agreement that calls for the return of abducted children to parents with custody. The agreement is in force in France, Switzerland, Canada and inPortugal. The other countries must cluding the United States still ratify the convention. Steiner van Rooyen. who is to help 22 parents find their children in Saudi Arabia, Canada, Spain and South America, says it may take 10 years for all the countries to ratify the agreement. She offers three suggestions to avoid abductions: Resist joint custody. If you have sole custody, it improves your standing in foreign courts," she says. Request a bond be posted by the visiting parent. Have a provision in the divorce decree that requires the visiting parent to relinquish his or her passport while visiting the child. court-grante- d now-tryin- Influence Covers the Globe Picture That! Look Adnan Khashoggi: An th At the Multibillionaire , His World In-Dep- Continued From Page 3 has brought her, among other items of luxury, incredible jewels. Her evdiamond, eryday ring is a about the size and shape of a cube of sugar. It is always on her finger. In a two-da- y period in Salt Lake City she wore enough jewels to fill Tiffany's windows. Khashoggi adores his daughter She is a replica of him, only a woman, with long hair. "My impression is that hes very close with all of his children. Nabila was his first, of course, and she's a girl, and I suspect theres a liggle twinkle in his eye," says Berendzen. When he talks about Nabila, face beams. Shes a very special lady," he says. At 22. Nabila is in charge of the ranch in Kenya. says: An entire tribe lives on his land. It's like hes got a little nation there. We created a separate company sees himself in Mohamed: "His tolerance, his understanding, his analytical mind. For Mohamed. who grew up in Beirut and rarely saw his father, the best of times have been when they were on vacation: "We used to ride horses alone together . . until I was about 14. Hes one man you can never say you're alone with for more than five minutes. It was really great to be alone without somebody grabbing him, pulling him away." Mohamed says, We are a close family. I speak to my sister everyday. I speak to my father once a week. The son has his father's determination: They say European fortunes last three generations. American fortunes two generations, and Middle Eastern, one. We will show you. We want to bring back the pride of the Arabs We will show you that our fortune will last beyond me. beyond my grandson, and beyond his grandson." Na-bil- a. Kha-shogg- iBer-endze- n In California, he is an investor in Foster City, near San Francisco, a mixed-us- e jdevelopmcnt. His holdings include oil refineries in Long Beach, and a pipeline near Los Angeles. He has donated at least $50,000 to the Jimmy Carter Center at Emory University. Geoffrey Kemp, a Middle East adviser on the National Security Council, believes Khashoggi's holdings are right up there" near the top of Saudi investments in the United Sates. at the University ' shoggi .ogy," using greed ra' says Geoffrey K. j ggi believes he has the solution to the problems of the Middle East. Newsweek magazine reported he has met with Israeli Labor Party leader Shimon Peres. "You have to stabilize the resources, Khashoggi says. "Every economic summit that happened, it crashes with the Middle East problem ... It will affect your increases in oil, it will affect your prices in production . . Everything that we saw in the 70s are being repeated in the 80s. So this problem has to be stopped. The Middle East has to be put on the agenda in a priority position. If you look at the Reagan plan and you look at everything he proposed, the carrot is missing. Why? If I was the Israelis, why would I make a tactical peace with the Arabs? For what reason? So they tear it up neatly? Wheres my security? I would not Off the Track Trainer Robert Tayior has finished warming up bis trotter, Mateson, at a racecourse in Lexington, Ky., and is beading . . . where? It looks like hes running a good horse into the ground. In fact, he's heading into a tunnel under the track and will emerge safely on the other side. You can bet on it! . Frustrated Businessman Despite the wealth and influence. Khashoggi describes himself as simply a frustrated businessman who is looking every day for a transaction." He wants to be an international statesman," says Miles Copeland, but Khashoggi denies an interest in politics. I think politics from my frame of mind is a waste of time," he says. He is a Saudi who does business Vm telling you is: OK , you tried diplomacy, ie you tried war games , why don't you try the game , which is the basie game of survival?" 4 eeo-nom- &P Ncwsfea4urP3 . More Wavs to Cut Pie Nevertheless, the more children his father's new marriage produces, the more ways the pie must be cut For now, there is only one offspring, a boy called Ali At night he gets down on his knees with his little boy and they pray together." says Shaheens wife Patricia, who also works for Khashoggi In 1974 Khashoggi began spending $150 million to build the International Center and the Triad Center in Salt Lake City, which, when finished, are to be complexes. He says his holdings there are worth $1 billion He has donated $12 million for an internadark-haire- d tional education center at the LDS Hospital Sen Orrin Hatch savs. 1 do know this, that the LDS church hieraehv has been very warm to the Khashog gis and to the work that is "going on I think he's a smart man In Houston. Khashoggi owns 21 acres of land worth about $90 million He plans to repeat his Salt Lake City project 'here ) Israel through his Egyptian company. "I have no complexity in dealing with the Jewish people. Now that they have opened up with Egypt, there are opportunities dealing with them via our Egyptian group," he with says. He is a Saudi who does business with China "We cannot deal yet with China directly because Saudi Arabia does not recognize them So our Saudi base would not be involved. The American base can. He is a Saudi concerned about his own country, afraid that base for free enterprise is threatened The royal family in Saudi Arabia is like the Communist Party in Russia They what docs the Commurepresent nist Party represent in the population. 2 percent, 3 percent "(Earlier he said. You have pillars, insurance high purchase companies groups that rater to the welfare of the individual We don't have it Take the king out and the royal family, we are a communist state by structure. So. who are we fooling1") He's very keen on rapprochement which we named her chairman of." Khashoggi says. "She goes and markets her own projects If she makes money. I get 60 percent, she gets 40 percent." Tough Businessman, Father He is a tough businessman and a . tough father When his children they were sent to bed at 6 "The main thing is to apply the discipline in this area when they are little, and also expose them to the value of " things One son, flalad. is at Prim eton university and two others, Hussein and Omar, attend Le Rnse. in Switzerland His oldest son. Mohamed. 21, is make a peace U I was the Persians. wen-young- why should I stop the war in Iraq? For what? So that I please the Americans1 Thats not logic . . . The carrot has to come . . So all you need is to create a special fund which has in it real meat $200 billion, $300 billion which is nothing if all Europe, and the United States, and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf contribute to it . The Israelis, what do they have? They havent got what they want. They don't want any more, but if you don't give them now protection for the economy, and the inflation and so on, they will keep on expanding, and they'll be a problem to you ... I'm speaking of soft loans, aids, agricultural development ... We can make it a mixed basket, part of it in cash, part of it in production, and have an umbrella agreement which the IMF . . International . Monetary Fund can be part of, and everything can work. "All I'm telling you is: OK, you tried diplomacy, you tried war games, why don't you try the economic game, which is the basic game of survival1" It is a revolutionary idea, for a Saudi to be speaking of Marshall Fund that would benefit not only the Arab countries but Israel, too. if the fund were established, no doubt, in the tradition of the Middle East, it would require a middleman. Adnan Khashoggi is always available to do business It is his greatest pleasure, his primary interest from start to finish "You have to do things that you enjoy doing That's a key." he says "It's all a package It's like meeting a woman for the first time, courting her, and enjoying the whole thing until the end And every part of it. it s enjoyable Even the part that she " gave you a hard time Mutual Broadcasting Weathers Financial Crisis - WASHINGTON (UPI) The Mutual Broadcasting System, which gal- loped onto the airwaves 50 years ago with The Lone Ranger" and other classics, has apparently weathered a financial crisis and is heading for new radio frontiers. Executives of the satellite-deliverenetwork, owned by the Amway Corp. and now best known for its news and sports reports and The Larry King Show," say Mutual has bounced back from last spring's staff and budget cuts, a shake up in top management and rumors that it was about to be sold again. The network formed Sept 15, 1934, and dubbed Mutual" Oct. 4 of will be back in the the same year black very soon," said vice president and general manager Jack Clements, an Mutual veteran who took over when Martin Rubinstein, the president and chief executive officer, and his two top aides suddenly left in d April. The departures, which were never Clements calls explained, led to what the death watch " Rut rumors halted in late May when the network hired Ron Nessen. White House press see retary under President Ford, as vire president of news Now, Clements said, morale is at a new high, Nessen is creating excitement in the newsroom," and he ex pects Mutual to be among the top the next five years. His optimism is bolstered by Mutual's latest audience ratings, w'hich were up dramatically this spring at a time when many other networks lost listeners Clements predicts they will climb even higher in the next two ratings periods. Mutual has been putting "a lot of money" into upgrading equipment at existing affiliates and adding new afnow at 847 from an filiates high of 960 in 1980, although the network distributes programming to as many as 2,500 radio stations nationwide. The network is also studying turn-kevwhether to start a for in stations service programming small markets. At the same time, Amway restored funds that had been cut, allowing the network to expand from six to seven nights a week on Sept 22 with a new talk program. Saturday "The Jim Bohannon Show " On Sept 17, Mutual added a new 5 05 a m to 5 30 a m weekday series. America in the Morning," patterned after television's morning news three networks in all-tim- e " late-nig- shows. Next year the network will have enhanced sports coverage, with such additions as The Bluebonnet Bowl." And for the first time in its history, Mutual is creating a separate division for satellite services, which industry experts say could eventually account ior 50 percent of the network's business This fall Mutual will begin testing a project dubbed MultiComm, which will send audio and data information over a little-useportion of the FM radio spectrum called "subcarriers." Network Vice President Gene Swanzy, who developed MultiComm, said users will pic k up the scrambled signals on special Amway-buil- t which automatically unscramble them and convert them into tape recordings or printed material The system is expected to be used, at first, primarily by industry groups to distribute newsletters, training information and memos. Amway is already using the svs-teto distribute its ' Pacesetter Report" newsletter via subcarriers Mutual is leasing from FM stations in Detroit, Grand Rapids. Mich, and Washington, DC The network eventually plans to lease 200 snbrarriers d printer-recei- vers, i , |