Tommy Roussen (37) really liked it again last May. His ex, Lithuanian Simona, was sentenced to three months in prison by the court in Den Bosch for the kidnapping of their daughter Yuna. But he hasn’t gained much from that conviction. His daughter is still in Lithuania with her mother and the atmosphere between the two exes is even colder than before.
On Thursday, Tommy must once again convince the judges on appeal that Yuna was wrongfully taken to Lithuania. After that, his ex can still appeal to cassation and Yuna is now almost 7 years old.
Simona went on holiday to her home country Lithuania with their daughter in 2019, but never returned. “Today marks exactly five years since they were supposed to come home,” Tommy muses. “But she had already deregistered Yuna and registered her in Lithuania.”
Tommy fought like a lion for years to see his child again, but the judge in Lithuania ruled that it was in Yuna’s interest to stay in Lithuania, because she was now rooted there. “My ex doesn’t cooperate with anything either,” says Tommy. “She sends me hateful emails, thwarts my weekly video calls and with this appeal she only wants to prolong the case.”
Yuna has been to the Netherlands three times since the ruling, during school holidays. “My ex wants to make a good impression with this,” Tommy thinks. “To show that she is cooperating. But that’s really not the case.”
“I have also tried to make contact with schools in Lithuania, for example, but that is also being thwarted. And of course I don’t speak a word of Lithuanian, which doesn’t help either.”
Tommy now has a new relationship and lives with his wife and daughter in the Paleiskwartier in Den Bosch. And this immediately makes the unstable balance in his life clear: On the one hand, he is happy with his current wife and daughter of almost two years, and on the other hand, the kidnapping case of his first daughter Yuna has been going on for five years.
Roussen is looking forward to Thursday’s appeal. “That is the last time I can tell you again what I think about the matter and how I feel.”
When the criminal case is finally concluded, Tommy wants to try to make better agreements through the civil court. For Yuna, who is now almost 7, he wants her to have a good life. And he would like to tell the judge one more time on Thursday.
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Tommy’s daughter was kidnapped to Lithuania, mother has to go to jail