A ‘KIDNAP’ victim’s loyal dog waited at the doorstep of its owner’s alleged abductor’s home following the teen’s disappearance in 1997.
The family of Omar Bin Omran, who vanished from his home city of Djelfa in Algeria when he was 17, said the dog likely smelled its owner.
Omar’s family had lost all hope that they would see him again, and assumed he died during the civil war fought between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups from 1992 to 2002.
But in an update that shocked the world, Omar was on Sunday discovered in the hay-covered cellar of his 61-year-old neighbour’s home.
Shocking footage showed Omar, now aged 45, being helped out of what appeared to be a deep hole in the ground, only 200 yards from the family home where he grew up.
Torchlight shone into the pit and landed on Omar, who was wearing a grey and blue sweater and had a beard, pieces of straw in his hair, and a desperate look on his face.
After Omar was found at his neighbour’s property, Omar’s family were struck by a memory which earlier seemed insignificant.
They recalled how the missing teen’s dog had refused to leave the doorstep of their 61-year-old neighbour long after Omar vanished while on his way to vocational school.
Local reports said the dog must have recognised Omar’s smell and pined for its owner at the neighbour’s home – before the animal mysteriously vanished, too.
Omar’s alleged captor poisoned the dog and later left its body at the door of Omar’s family home, according to Algerian newspaper El Khabar.
Pictures snapped before Omar was allegedly kidnapped emerged this week and showed him sitting with a dog and holding a baby.
The cellar where Omar was allegedly kept for 27 years has been described locally as a covered well on a sheep farm.
Omar was kept under haystacks and never cried for help because he was convinced his alleged captor had cast a magic spell on him, local reports said.
Officials confirmed this week that they arrested the 61-year-old man who allegedly kept Omar prisoner.
The suspect is understood to have lived alone and and worked as a civil servant.
Public prosecutors in Djelfa said the regional division of the National Gendarmerie received a report that Omar was inside a sheep pen on the property of his neighbour in the municipality of al-Qadid.
The National Gendarmerie were ordered by the General Prosecutor of the Court of Idrisiya to open an “in-depth investigation” and officers went to the neighbour’s home.
Omar’s family were reportedly alerted to their missing family member’s whereabouts after the brother of Omar’s alleged captor revealed details of the “kidnapping” on social media.
Reports said the family stormed the alleged abductor’s residence in search of their missing loved one and the alleged captor attempted to flee before he was restrained and then arrested.
The alleged kidnapper and his brother were said to have been fighting over inheritance.
A court official in Djelfa said: “The Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered that the victim receive medical and psychological treatment, and the suspect will be presented to the Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately after the completion of the investigation.”
Authorities said the investigation was still ongoing but promised the “perpetrator of this heinous crime” will be tried with “severity”.
Another neighbour of Omar’s told Algerian TV station Bilad: “(Omar’s) poor mum died while he was in captivity, without knowing what had happened to him, without knowing that all this time he was really right beside her.”
Omar was made aware of his mother’s death in 2013 while being held captive, according to local reports.
A relative said on Facebook: “Thank god my cousin was found.
“Bin Imran Omar is in good health after 26 years of disappearance. Awaiting details of the case and investigations.”
THERE were 7,420 kidnapping offences recorded by cops in England and Wales in the year 2022/23 - an increase from the previous year.
Here are some of the world’s longest kidnapping cases:
December 4, 1972: Steven Stayner, seven, was kidnapped on his way home from school in California and raised by his abductor Kenneth Parnell for seven years, until Parnell abducted a second child – Timmy White – in 1980. Both boys escaped on March 1, 1980.
1974: Suzanne Marie Sevakis, five, from North Carolina, was raised by her abductor. The truth of her origins were discovered in 1990 when she died in an apparent hit-and-run.
February 13, 1976: Victoria Montenegro, the daughter of People’s Revolutionary Army dissidents, was kidnapped aged 13 days and raised by an army colonel while her parents were killed. Her true identity was established in 2000 following a DNA test.
May 19, 1977: Colleen Stan, 20, was kidnapped in California while hitchhiking. She was tortured and sexually abused for seven years until her abductor Cameron Hooker’s wife helped her escape in 1984.
1978: Doina Bumbea, 28, was possibly kidnapped to provide a wife to an American defector in North Korea. She died in 1997 from lung cancer.
August 29, 1984: Elisabeth Fritzl, 18, was held captive for 24 years in the basement of her family home in Austria by her father Josef who sexually abused her. The abuse led to the birth of seven children and one miscarriage. Elisabeth and her three captive children were released by Josef in 2008 when one child became seriously ill.
Other cases of children imprisoned by relatives include:
