KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 9 — Freddie Joseph, the 20-month old toddler abducted from Bangsar yesterday, has been found uninjured at the Titiwangsa Lake, city police confirmed today.
According to head of the Kuala Lumpur Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Datuk Ku Chin Wah, the son of a British expatriate was found alive and well at the park in the city around noon.
“At 12.30 p.m, we received information that the boy was found at Titiwangsa Lake, along Jalan Kuantan,” Sentul police chief ACP Zakaria Pagan said during a brief press conference outside the Jalan Tun Razak police station today.
“It is believed that the boy was positively identified by a passer-by based on the extensive coverage by the media on the kidnapping.
Zakaria said officers were then dispatched to the location, where they found the boy in good health.
“He was found standing alone by the side of the road.”
At 2p.m., Freddie was spotted as he exited the Jalan Tun Razak police station after being reunited with his mother, Sarah Joseph, and members of her family who arrived there earlier today.
The toddler was snatched from outside his home in Bangsar at around 5.20pm yesterday by a man described as a 5-feet-6-inches tall individual with Chinese or Burmese features and accompanied by an Asian woman with long black hair.
A neighbour who witnessed the incident had tried to save Freddie, the policeman said, but there was a struggle and the kidnapper flashed a knife and slashed at Joseph, injuring her.
His mother was scheduled to make a personal plea for his abductors to release Freddie today, but the toddler was found before this took place.
The abduction yesterday reminded the nation of the kidnap of 12-year-old Dutch schoolboy Nayati Shamelin Moodliar last year.
The pre-teen was grabbed while walking to the Mont Kiara International School on April 27 last year and released six days later at the Sungai Buloh highway rest stop after his family paid a RM300,000 ransom.
