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Miliband 'failed to help hunt for model feared murdered abroad'
Justin Davenport, Crime Correspondent17 Mar 2009
FOREIGN Secretary David Miliband was accused today of failing to take action over a British former model feared to have been murdered in Hungary.
Her family believe Eva Rhodes, who appeared in a John Lennon and Yoko Ono film, was killed because of her work running an animal sanctuary in Hungary.
The 65-year-old grandmother disappeared in September after becoming the target of a hate campaign and clashing with local police. Hungarian authorities say they are treating it as a missing person case but her family are convinced she has been killed.
MP Malcolm Rifkind has accused the Foreign Office of not doing enough to help find out what has happened to her.
Mrs Rhodes was last seen with a Roma man who worked at her Puss in Boots Animal Trust near the town of Gyor in north-west Hungary.
Although her bank account has not been touched, her office had been ransacked, laptop stolen and her car found parked outside her home with its doors open.
In his letter to the Foreign Secretary Mr Rifkind says Mr Miliband's argument that it was a missing persons case, not one of murder, was "very disturbing".
He said the Foreign Secretary should do more to put pressure on the Hungarian government.
Mr Rifkind, a former foreign secretary, contrasted the case with that of French student Ophelie Bretnacher who went missing in Budapest in December and whose body was found in the Danube last month.
In that case French detectives were called in by Hungarian authorities after French president Nicolas Sarkozy intervened.
Mr Rifkind said: "If it is possible for the French authorities to act in this way with some success I am not aware that there is any reason why the UK could not do the same."
He was writing on behalf of Mrs Rhodes's sister Judith Majlath, who lives in Vienna and his Kensington constituency. She told the Standard: "I wrote to Miliband on 18 December last year and I still have not got a personal reply to my letter.
"When a French national disappeared in similar circumstances the French demanded action and got their police sent in. The British Foreign Secretary is just sitting on his hands repeating the Hungarian excuses like a parrot. I want to know what happened to my sister and I believe only a police force such as Scotland Yard can help."
Mrs Rhodes, whose family left Hungary in the Fifties, was working as a model and actress in London in the Sixties when her looks attracted the attention of Lennon and Ono.
They cast her in a film they were making called Rape, about the intrusion of the camera in everyday life.
She established the animal sanctuary for abandoned cats and dogs 12 years ago after divorcing her husband, architect Mark Rhodes.
Her family believes she made enemies after she campaigned against dog fighting and the use of animals in lab experiments.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "A UK police force can only take action at the invitation of the government of the country where a person has gone missing.
"Colleagues at our embassy in Hungary have regularly checked with the local police in Gyor. They are fully aware of our concerns."
Reader views (4)
Milliband is certainly the most inefectual, unqualified and least capable foreign minister in the EU. Besides being a national embarrasment to the UK he is a reflection of how pathetic we have become as a nation. The fact that we have zero influence over a cabel of gansters who are in charge of the poorest and most unstable country in the union shows what a joke Britain and the EU is.
- Jed Wilde, London, 18/03/2009 14:11
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Absolutely correct Keith. Mr Milliband is an international giant on the world stage of politics,a statesman of stature who can be relied upon to stand up and fight for what is right."
Thanks enormously for concurring - david
- Keith Price, Luton, England, 17/03/2009 19:31
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Absolutely correct Keith. Mr Milliband is an international giant on the world stage of politics,a statesman of stature who can be relied upon to stand up and fight for what is right. Provided of course it fits in with what his focus group are advancing for the week, and make him appeal to the luvies.
- David, London, 17/03/2009 17:25
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What a silly and pointless accusation to make about a respected Foreign Minister. What is the point >
- Keith Price, Luton, England, 17/03/2009 15:53
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