The Court of Appeal of the Italian city of Cagliari has denied the Spanish Juana Rivas custody of the minor of her two children. The sentence stipulates that the eldest son, aged 17, will be in the custody of Juana Rivas in Spain, while the second, aged nine, must remain on the island of Sardinia with his father, Francesco Arcuri.

However, the Spanish mother “may exercise her right to visit the minor exclusively in Sardinia” or in the small town of Carloforte, on the island of San Pietro, where the father resides. She will be able to do it on the weekends after she finishes school on Fridays, on Christmas breaks, and on school breaks in alternate years. This Holy Week, the sentence specifies, the minor must remain with the father.

In summer, Juana Rivas will be able to host the child for 15 consecutive days before the first half of July and another 15 days in the first half of August, unless the parties agree to another distribution.

The judge has rejected an instance for the protection of the minor presented by Rivas and has also ordered the Social Services of Carloforte to analyze the conditions of the child every time he has spent time with his mother.

The sentence includes a report from June 2022 indicating that the child had changed his version of his relationship with the mother and that both she and the older brother had made him tell lies. In a meeting with psychological staff in September of that year, upon his return from summer vacation in Spain with his mother, the boy said: “My mom is like she brainwashed me by talking about dad, telling lies about dad. , that daddy hit me, but it wasn’t true”.

The custody battle for Rivas’s children is one of the most publicized cases in recent years in Spain and began in 2016, when the mother left Italy with them, later alleging physical and psychological abuse by Arcuri. Once in Spain, Rivas refused to return to Italy with the minors, whom she schooled in the Granada town of Maracena for the 2016-2017 academic year. In June 2017, the father obtained provisional custody and custody of the children in Cagliari, which led to a court in Granada ordering their immediate return to Italy, a decision that was endorsed by the Provincial Court.

Disregarding the previous requirement, the court issued a decision ordering the immediate surrender at the end of July at the Family Meeting Point in Granada, to where the father of the children traveled together with the Italian consular authority and a police force. , although the defendant did not appear.

Rivas decided to hide in the company of the two minors in a place unknown to the authorities, who tried to locate them at various homes of relatives and friends, which led Arcuri to file a complaint for the disappearance of the children.

In July 2022, the Spanish Supreme Court endorsed the partial pardon granted by the Government of Pedro Sánchez to Juana Rivas, in prison for her sentence to two and a half years in prison for the abduction of her two minor children.