KEY POINTS:
The Chinese national accused of kidnapping 5-year-old Cina Ma is an Auckland real estate agent - and known by the father of the girl.
The 25-year-old appeared in the North Shore District Court yesterday charged with kidnapping the girl with intent to hold her for ransom.
He entered no plea and was remanded in custody to appear next Friday when name suppression is likely to be lifted.
More details emerged yesterday about the identity of the man, his connection to the family of "Xin Xin" and the horror five-day ordeal she suffered after being abducted outside her Albany home on Monday.
The man works as a real estate agent at a North Shore branch of a prominent nationwide firm and is understood to have had past dealings with Jian Ma, the girl's father and a well-known figure in the property scene. The father did not return Herald on Sunday calls yesterday.
A photograph of the accused, plus all his contact details, was still on the company website, but the man's employer said he had been advised by police not to say anything about the matter.
Police also refused to comment about a possible motive for the kidnapping or reports of a $1 million ransom demand. They would not say how they safely brokered the return of the 5-year-old but confirmed she was bound with tape and locked in a cupboard for the duration of her ordeal.
It is understood the accused made a series of demands by email and text message during the week.
The girl was discovered wrapped in a blanket at 3.15pm on Friday in an empty house just a few hundred metres from her Albany home. It is still not clear whether that was the address where she had spent the past five days or was a drop-off point.
As a precaution she spent Friday night in hospital and was returned to the family at an undisclosed location on Saturday morning.
The property where she was found is barely 10 minutes drive from the North Shore home of the accused which he shares with four others.
The man is not registered as the owner of the $680,000 property but has lived there for the past three months. Yesterday the house was cordoned off, but the man's black 2002 BMW remained in the driveway.
It appears police may have known the identity of the suspected kidnapper as early as Friday morning.
A team of officers took over a neighbouring property early on Friday and spent several hours watching the house of the accused. However, it is not clear what exactly led them to the address or whether the man was at home when arrested.
The owner of that property told the Herald on Sunday he had been shocked to learn that one of the occupants of the house was the man accused of kidnapping Cina Ma. He had seen a few people coming and going during the week and often heard "noises in the night", but said there was nothing to suggest any sort of sinister behaviour.
The occupants of the house were all Asian, he said, and tended to keep largely to themselves and often had the curtains drawn.
When he was contacted by police on Friday morning it dawned on him that the property could be related to inquiries into the missing girl.
"But it's still a shock... not the sort of thing you expect in a quiet suburban street," he said.
Other neighbours said they had not seen any evidence to suggest a young girl was being harboured inside the white weatherboard home which an occupant had acquired at auction in February.
The girl's aunt Tong Zhou said the family were obviously relieved to have Cina Ma home and were hoping life would return to normal as quickly as possible. She confirmed the man was known to the family, but refused to elaborate further.
She said it had been important to be in court yesterday to look the accused in the eye.
Zhou expected Cina Ma would have given her kidnapper a difficult few days because she was the sort of child who would have put up a fight.
"She is very boisterous. She would have been kicking and screaming the whole time," she said.
But she was a very sociable child and would enjoy going back to school next week, which hopefully would help take her mind off her ordeal.
"We have missed her terribly and are so glad she is home now. It's going to be hard to let her go outside for a while, but I suppose that's to be expected," she said.
"This was such a dreadful thing to happen. Her mother is relieved beyond belief that this drama is now over."
- Portia Mao
