Missing Acre infant found healthy

The baby, which went missing Sunday, was found near Jerusalem.

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL, JPOST STAFF
baby 88 (photo credit: )
baby 88
(photo credit: )
Following the lifting of a court-ordered gag order, it was released for publication Tuesday that the missing baby from Acre was found by police in the Jerusalem area, alive and healthy. The baby went missing on Sunday while his mother was in a restroom in Acre's Old City. Police were still continuing their investigation into the case. Hundreds of police and volunteers had searched throughout the Galilee area on Monday morning for three-month-old Halil Somrin, following searches conducted on Sunday evening and throughout the night.
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Police asked the public for any help they could offer. A childless couple from the north of the country was investigated in the Acre police station on Monday morning in order to remove suspicion that they may have been involved in the disappearance. Family members said that if the child was kidnapped, they would be willing to pay any price for his return. The two had been part of an organized tour that left east Jerusalem early Sunday morning carrying four busloads of tourists to the western Galilee. Upon arriving in Acre early in the evening, the 25-year-old mother, a resident of the east Jerusalem neighborhood of A-Tur, left her three-month-old son in his carriage outside the restroom that she entered. After a few minutes, she exited the restroom and discovered that the baby - and the carriage - had disappeared. After a perfunctory search for the missing infant, the tourists decided to call for police assistance. After carrying out an initial search and coming up empty-handed, Acre station police, under the command of station chief Dep.-Cmdr. Moshe Cohen, called for reinforcements. They enlisted the use of a police helicopter. Mosques in the old city on Sunday blared out calls to residents to join the searches, and within a few hours, police officers were joined by hundreds of volunteers, who searched the winding streets of the old city looking for the missing baby. As the searches continued, the baby's mother was questioned by Acre police. The young woman was accompanied on the tour by her mother-in-law and her seven-year-old brother. An emergency command center was set up at the entrance to the Acre tourist information center, the "Magical Gardens," not far from the city's famous citadel. Searches continued throughout the night and into the morning, but with no result.