Australian granddad kidnapped in case of mistaken identity
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Mr Chris Baghsarian, 85, was wearing grey pyjamas and a red and green flannel shirt at the time of the kidnapping, police said.
PHOTO: NSW POLICE FORCE/FACEBOOK
SYDNEY – Australian police on Feb 16 appealed for the urgent return of an 85-year-old man kidnapped in what they said was a case of mistaken identity.
The police received reports early on Feb 13 that Mr Chris Baghsarian had been taken from his home by three intruders in Sydney’s North Ryde suburb.
The kidnappers had been targeting an individual linked to the western Sydney-based Alameddine crime network, national broadcaster ABC said.
Octogenarian Baghsarian, however, is “not involved in any criminal world”, Robbery and Serious Crime Squad commander Andrew Marks told journalists on Feb 16.
“I’m a million per cent confident they have the wrong person,” he said.
“It’s not an instance where they are randomly taking people for the sake of it. They were intending to take somebody, but have taken the wrong person.”
In what he admitted was a “very strange appeal”, he urged the kidnappers to release their prisoner as soon as possible.
Mr Baghsarian, a grandfather, was wearing grey pyjamas and a red and green flannel shirt at the time of the kidnapping, the police said.
The victim requires daily medical attention, and his family is in deep distress.
Videos and photos have circulated within Sydney’s criminal underworld of Mr Baghsarian with severe injuries, local media reported.
“The fact that these offenders or these kidnappers have got it so wrong is concerning,” Mr Marks said.
But he stressed “that those who have elderly parents or grandparents need not fear”. AFP
