Chantal Tonello, found in Hungary after 13 years the girl kidnapped by her mother

After thirteen long years of waiting and research, it was found in Hungary Chantal Tonello, the girl who had been taken away by her mother, who removed her from her father. The girl, today thirteen -year -old, was found in Mezotur, a Hungarian town about 150 kilometers from Budapest. The news arrived in the middle of the night between Thursday 12 and Friday 13 June, when Tonello’s lawyer, Chiara Balbinot, received a call from Interpol: “They found it, let’s start”.

The mother of Chantal Tonello, Klaudia Sallai Delicico, was arrested With an international capture mandate and in the meantime the girl has been temporarily entrusted to the maternal grandmother, pending the decisions of the Hungarian authorities on her future.

“I saw it“Said Andrea Tonello, who immediately went to Hungary”it is beautiful. It is troubled, she hasn’t had a good life in these years, I can’t say anything more because now the Hungarian authorities have to decide the next steps, the story is now very delicate, everything that is best for Chantal must be done, My only thought is her».

The story of Chantal Tonello

The story of Andrea Tonello and his daughter Chantal begins in 2010, when Andrea, a trade agent of Vigonza (Padua), has a relationship with Klaudia Sallai delicoi, Hungarian town. On September 15, 2011 their daughter was born, Chantal. But after childbirth, the woman shows herself more and more far from her partner and her family.

In January 2012, Klaudia decided to go to Hungary with her daughter for a short visit to relatives, with the agreement that Tonello would reach them to spend a holiday period together, before returning home to Vigonza. But when the Father sets off, reality changes: The Ladico tells him that he will no longer show him the little girl And he doesn’t say where he is. From that moment the ordeal of his father begins, who immediately protrudes denounces in Italy and starts a long legal and personal battle.

The long battle of Chantal’s father

Andrea Tonello sought his daughter by any means: participations in television programs, social campaigns, public appeals. In 2023 he even wrote to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni: “I appeal to President Meloni, as a representative of Italy, but above all as a mother”.

In 2018 a glimpse of hope had opened, with the announcement by the Interior Ministry of the creation of a joint investigative pool between Italy and Hungary. An important step, which however requested another seven years of investigations, investigations and collaboration between the authorities of the two countries.

The final turning point came a few days ago, with a joint blitz of the Hungarian and Italian police in Mezotur. The operation, on European arrest warrant issued by the Venice Court of Appealled to the arrest of the mother and the identification of the young Chantal, finally alive and traced. Klaudia Sallai Ladico had been sentenced to 4 years of sentence, for the subtraction of minor – but not for kidnapping. Justice had “waged” on legal quibbles but Tonello was not very interested in: “My ex can spend 4 or 10 years in the cell, I don’t care, I am interested in finding my daughter”. And so it was.

The next moves

On the judicial level, it will now be task of the Hungarian authorities Decide the girl’s future and any ways for a reunification with the father. Meanwhile, Klaudia Sallai delicoi is located in a state of detention, pending the procedures related to entry or other international measures.

For Andrea Tonello, a long and painful parenthesis made of pain, hope and determination closes. But it opens now a new, delicate phase: that of reconstructing a relationship with a daughter who grew up far away and in unknown circumstances.