WORLD : Ex-Lebanese Hostage Jailed for Defying Custody Ruling
Jacqueline Valente, freed in Beirut in April after more than two years as a hostage, was sentenced to two months in prison today for taking two daughters from her ex-husband in defiance of a custody ruling.
Prosecutors had requested only a one-month suspended sentence but Judge Andre Fortin decided to impose a harsher penalty.
He said Valente, 32, had committed a “premeditated kidnaping” in 1983 and expressed irritation that she refused to answer questions about the mysterious circumstances of her own abduction.
In August, 1983, Valente refused to take her daughters--Marie-Laure and Virginie--back to their father after a regular visit. In November, 1987, a Libyan-backed Palestinian group said it had taken them hostage along with five Belgians aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean.
The two girls were freed in 1988, and Valente was freed April 10, along with her Belgian companion and their own daughter who was born while she was a hostage.
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