Man charged with Maori baby kidnap

Baby Kahu was found in a house in central North Island

A 54-year-old man has been charged with the kidnapping of a baby who was snatched from her high-profile Maori parents more than a week ago in New Zealand.

Police said the man, who was a stranger to the family, appeared briefly in court.

Baby Kahu seems unperturbed by her ordeal

There was no apparent motive for the abduction, other than for ransom.

Her adoptive parents spoke of their delight in being reunited with their daughter.

"When I saw her, I spoke to her very gently, I just wanted to see that she was well," said her mother, Donna Hall. "Then we saw the flash of her eyes and we both knew she was just great."

'Acting alone'

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

"I think he was acting alone and didn't know them at all," Detective Inspector Stuart Wildon, head of the inquiry, told Radio New Zealand.

A 54-year-old man has been charged with the kidnap

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

They had received a ransom demand of NZ$3m ($1.34m).

"I thought she was worth a bit more than that actually," her father Eddie Durie told reporters. "I think he may have sold himself a bit short there."

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

Church bells rung out across the town where the Duries lived on Sunday night after Baby Kahu was found.

Maori rights

Donna Hall and Eddie Durie are both leading activists involved in the push for Maori rights.

Some people had 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.

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.