Shmuel Peleg arrives for a court hearing over charges of kidnapping grandson Eitan Biran
Shmuel Peleg arrives for a court hearing over charges of kidnapping grandson Eitan BiranAvshalom Sassoni/Flash90

Italy has issued an international arrest warrant for Shmuel Peleg, grandfather of cable car crash survivor Eitan Biran, Italian news outlet Corriere della Sera reported.

According to the report, a warrant was also issued for driver Gavriel Abutbul Alon, age 50, who lives in Cyprus.

The newspaper quoted the words of the Italian prosecutor, who claimed that, "The grandfather planned how to take the child out of Italy the moment he understood that he would no longer be able to receive authority over him within the country."

He added that Peleg "together with Gavriel Alon, implemented a strategic, thought-out plan which allowed him to take the child with him to Israel."

The plan used "military and intelligence spy techniques" during the "operation" and was carried out with "suspicious" cooperation, the prosecutor added. According to him, when Italian investigators reconstructed the plan, they found that the vehicle in which Peleg and his grandson crossed the Italy-Switzerland border was not stopped for a border check.

Eitan is the sole survivor of a cable car crash in Italy which killed 14 people, including both his parents and his two-year-old brother. He was brought to Israel by his grandfather Shmuel Peleg without his guardian aunt's permission.