Snatched Maori baby returned

Many people thought the abduction was race-related

An eight-month-old girl who was kidnapped more than a week ago in New Zealand has been returned unharmed to her high-profile Maori parents.

Kahurautete Durie - known as Baby Kahu - was snatched from her pushchair by a masked gunman last Saturday in a quiet suburb of Wellington.

The abduction and nationwide police hunt stunned the nation, sparking some 1,000 phone calls to a special hotline and dominating news bulletins.

Baby Kahu was snatched during a morning stroll

Baby Kahu's adoptive parents, Donna Hall and Eddie Durie are both leading activists involved in the push for Maori rights.

The little girl was found on Sunday during a raid on a house in central North Island, police said.

She appeared to be in good health, they said.

Police also revealed that they had received a ransom demand for NZ$3m ($1.34m).

Maori rights

A man is being questioned in connection with the case but police have not revealed any motivation for the crime.

Some people speculated that the kidnapping was race-related and that Baby Kahu's parents had been targeted because of their involvement in multi-million dollar land claims for the Maori people.

Both Donna Hall, a top Wellington lawyer, and Eddie Durie, a senior High Court judge, have connections with the Waitangi Tribunal, which investigates and rules on Maori claims over contentious historical issues including Maori land confiscation.

Ms Hall spent several years working on tribunal claims. She reportedly earned millions of dollars in legal fees for her work in this area, and openly admits she made enemies along the way.

Her husband is chairman of the tribunal.

Gangland threats

Baby Kahu was snatched in a neighbourhood in the North Island city of Lower Hutt while she was being pushed in her pram by her mother.

Correspondents say the nation was shocked because such crimes are virtually unknown in New Zealand.

A public rally was scheduled to be held to support the family and police put up a NZ$10,000 ($4,400) reward for information about the car used in the abduction.

There were even reports that local gangs - the Headhunters, Mongrel Mob and Black Power - had threatened to track down the kidnapper.

They said they had been outraged by the kidnapping and had branded the abductor a "coward" who was living on "borrowed time".

A few days ago, police were put on heightened alert after a caller to the Baby Kahu hotline claimed that she had killed the baby and disposed of her body.

After a massive police search for the body, a 13-year-old girl confessed that the call had been a hoax.