'Suicide bid' in Italy cafe case

Sunday, April 26, 2009 ·

Sascha Schmidt (L) and Ina Caterina Remhof (R) (Italian police handout)
The couple have said they fled because they had no mone

A German man has attempted to kill himself days after he and his girlfriend abandoned her three children at a restaurant in Italy, reports say.

Sascha Schmidt, 24, had allegedly tried to hang himself with a belt in his cell in northern Italy on Saturday.

Italy's news agencies said he was in a critical but stable condition.

Mr Schmidt and his girlfriend Caterina Remnof, 26, left the children in the northern town of Aosta last Sunday after ordering them a pizza.

The two left the pizzeria, supposedly for a cigarette, but never returned.

The children - believed to be aged four, two and eight months - are now in care in Germany. Mr Schmidt is not their biological father, according to German police.

Pizzeria Il Capanno in Aosta
Staff at the Aosta pizzeria only realised they had vanished after 10 minutes

Mr Schmidt and Ms Remnof were found by police last Thursday in a wood outside Aosta. The couple said they had fled because they had no money.

Ms Remnof was released after being charged with abandoning the children.

But Mr Schmidt was held pending extradition to Germany, where prosecutors say he failed to return to prison while on parole.

The prosecutors say he was serving a prison sentence for crimes including blackmail.

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