The judge of the court of Setúbal, Portugal, has ordered precautionary custody for Marine Rousseau, 41, and Marc Ballabriga, 55, the two French citizens held responsible for abandoning her two children, aged 3 and 5, in a forest near Monte Novo do Sul.
The charges: only the partner investigated for aggravated injuries
According to what was announced by the court, the two are accused of “two counts of endangering or abandoning” the children, found alone on Tuesday, sitting and crying on the side of a road. The accusation of “aggravated injuries” concerns only the mother’s partner. The Portuguese authorities had hypothesized that the two children may have been victims of physical violence, while the French gendarmerie had already expressed suspicions of mistreatment.
Who are the two French citizens
Marine Rousseau lived in Colmar, Alsace, and arrived in Portugal with her new partner on May 11th, by car, leaving a third 16-year-old child in France. Reported by her ex-husband, she was wanted by the French authorities. She is 41 years old, has a clean criminal record and presents herself on her social profiles as a sexologist and educator.
Marc Ballabriga, 55, is a former gendarmerie officer with a criminal record: convicted of domestic violence in 2010, he was also under the attention of the French justice system for social media publications of a conspiracy and anti-Semitic nature. The two have so far not shown collaboration with the police: the man resisted the officers when, on Friday evening, he was taken to court, while the woman sang songs.
The abandonment in the woods and the pretend game of hide and seek
The children had been left in a forest with a few supplies in a backpack and blindfolded, after the two adults had simulated a game of hide and seek with them and then left in the car. The little ones are currently welcomed into a foster family.
The arrest in a bar in Fatima
Marine Rousseau and Marc Ballabriga were stopped on Thursday by Portuguese police in a bar in Fatima, about 200 kilometers north of the site of the abandonment.