FIVE children were abducted from their British mother and spirited out of the country in a plot led by their Libyan father, a court was told yesterday.

Anita Elgirnazi’s children were snatched in Norwich in June 2000 and taken to Libya, where they now live with their father, Azzedin Journazi.

Mr Journazi recruited seven people to help him to snatch his children and smuggle them to his homeland, Norwich Crown Court was told, as part of a “complex and murky” plot.

He organised the adbuction in defiance of a court order, the jury was told, after a judge gave the children residence with Ms Elgirnazi, who had separated from their father.

It was months before Ms Elgirnazi, 36, learnt where her children were being held and she did not see them again until 2002, when a controlled access visit was arranged.

Two of the group, Mustapha Abushima, 38, and his wife, Wedad Ahmed, 45, from Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, were charged with conspiracy to abduct the children.

They are said to have conspired with Mr Journazi, Habib Budeeb, Djamel Beghal, Omar Ben Hamed and Carole Ben Hamed. The five did not appear in court.

John Farmer, for the prosecution, told the jury that two of the group were in prison in France.

The first, David Courtailler, was arrested for unrelated reasons when the group reached Calais.

The second, Djamel Beghal, an Algerian, was, he said, “a man of some notoriety” who had travelled on a fake British passport.

The children, Rumaysa Elgirnazi, then 11, Safiya Elgirnazi, then 9, Ali Elgirnazi, then 7, Hamza Elgirnazi, then 4, and Aisha Elgirnazi, then 2, were smuggled out of the country at Dover and taken through France and Spain and eventually to Libya.

Mr Farmer said: “At the centre of this case are five children who were abducted from Norwich on the 10th of June 2000 and removed to Libya, where they still are and cannot be retrieved by their mother.

“This is a murky, dirty business.

“This is a grim business, taking children away from their mother against a court’s orders. It is pretty rare.

“These children are still in a state of abduction. They have not been returned. The prime mover of this abduction was the children’s father. He drew up a plan to remove the children from the United Kingdom to Libya. It was a complex abduction.”

Mr Abushima and his wife have eight children of their own and their part of the plot was to pretend to be the parents of the Elgirnazi children and provide passport cover for them while they crossed national boundaries.

Mr Farmer said that the defendants had initially claimed to know nothing of the plot and that their defence was that they were part of the expedition but did not realise that the Elgirnazi children were being abducted. Mr Farmer said that Mr Journazi had picked up the children on the day that he was due to have a lawful access visit. He had pretended that they were going on a normal day out but had then met his co-conspirators and made the journey through France and Spain and across the Mediterranean.

“On any showing these children were unlawfully abducted,” he added. “On any showing Mr Journazi is guilty of a crime.”

The hearing into the abduction of the five children was adjourned until today.

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