Australian grandfather, 85, kidnapped in case of mistaken identity, police say, issuing appeal for his return

Sydney — Australian police on Monday appealed for the urgent return of an 85-year-old man kidnapped in what they said was a case of mistaken identity. Police received reports early Friday that octogenarian Chris Baghsarian had been carried from his home by three intruders in Sydney’s North Ryde suburb.

The kidnappers had been targeting an individual linked to the western Sydney-based Alameddine crime network, national broadcaster ABC said. Baghsarian is a grandfather who is “not involved in any criminal world,” Robbery and Serious Crime Squad Commander Andrew Marks told journalists on Monday.

“I’m a million percent confident they have the wrong person,” he said. “It’s not an instance where they are randomly taking people for the sake of it. They were intending to take somebody, but have taken the wrong person.”

In what he admitted was a “very strange appeal” he urged the kidnappers to release their geriatric prisoner as soon as possible.

Baghsarian was wearing grey pajamas and a red and green flannel shirt at the time of the kidnapping, police said, adding that the victim requires daily medical attention and his family are in deep distress.

Videos and photos have circulated within Sydney’s criminal underworld of Baghsarian with severe injuries, local media reported.

“The fact that these offenders or these kidnappers have got it so wrong is concerning,” Marks said, stressing, however, “that those who have elderly parents or grandparents need not fear.”

The case comes as police and the FBI continue investigating the abduction of NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother Nancy Guthrie from her home in Arizona. Two weeks after she was taken, no suspect has been publicly identified.

The kidnapping, and Savannah Guthrie’s emotional video appeals to her mother’s abductors, have galvanized attention across the U.S. and made headlines around the world.