A Slovak court resolved Friday that a Slovak-Italian boy who has taken refuge in Bratislava's Italian embassy must be given back to his Slovak mother, the court said, according to dpa. The Slovak Foreign Ministry then delivered to the embassy a diplomatic note, which includes a copy of the court's decision, ministry spokeswoman Marianna Pilatova said. "It demands that the boy be given back to his mother immediately," she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. As the court decision is effective on Slovak soil only, it remains unclear whether the Italian embassy will obey it. The staff reached there by telephone said the embassy already replied in a diplomatic note but refused to convey its content. The only official permitted to speak to the press, a charge d'affaires, was "too busy" to do so, a switchboard operator added. "I can't confirm that we have received a note from them," Pilatova told dpa. "They should inform about (its content)." So far the runaway boy has not been handed over to his mother. The dispute may be resolved later Friday after the Italian ambassador arrives at the embassy to deal with the case, TA3 news channel reported. Eleven-year-old Marco has been staying at the Italian embassy in Bratislava since Tuesday. He escaped from his mother, now pregnant with a child by a new husband, because he wants to live with his Italian father, reports said. The boy, who has dual citizenship, took a taxi to the Italian embassy after returning to the Bratislava airport from a vacation. "I want to be with my father. I get along better with my dad," Slovak reports cited Marco's dairy entry as saying. The embassy has so far refused to return the boy to his mother. "The first day we were there for 14 hours," Marco's mother Berta Staskova-Ondrisova told TA3 news channel. "I am six months pregnant and they had me wait for 14 hours. They are arrogant. I believe they are breaking all the rules possible." The mother has legal custody of the child, reports said. Marco already refused to return to Slovakia last year after spending the summer holidays with his father in Italy. But the Italian authorities returned him to Slovakia upon official requests, CTK news agency reported. Since the Iron Curtain was lifted nearly 18 years ago, cross- border marriages have become commonplace in former communist countries, but cross-border feuds over child custody after divorce have followed as well.
