Father of abandoned toddler to be extradited on kidnapping charge
The father of a 3-year-old girl found wandering alone Tuesday along a busy street in Prospect Heights has waived extradition and will be back in Cook County soon facing a charge of aggravated kidnapping, police said Friday.
Faiz Ikramulla, 35, of Round Lake, was arrested Thursday in Van Buren County, Michigan. Police say he took his daughter, Aliya, from their Round Lake home Tuesday and drove her to the Allison Woods Forest Preserve in Prospect Heights, where he put her in a trash can before driving away.
Cook County Sheriff's Police originally said they thought Ikramulla laid her on the ground in the woods and put a coat over her, but she apparently told Illinois Department of Children and Family Services agents about the trash can, said DCFS spokeswoman Veronica Resa.
Officials said they believe Aliya crawled out of the trash can. She was found wandering along Milwaukee Avenue, crying, around 6:30 p.m. when drivers pulled over and called the police.
Aliya has been placed with a family member while the DCFS investigation continues. Her mother is not a subject of the inquiry, Resa said, and Aliya was not injured, police said.
Cook County Sheriff's officials wouldn't say when Ikramulla will be brought back to Cook County because of security reasons, but said with the charge of aggravated kidnapping he is facing a mandatory sentence of six to 30 years in prison if convicted. It is not known why he was in Michigan.
The kidnapping charge is because Aliya was left in a place where her father believed she would not immediately be found, Sheriff's officials said.
A friend of the girl's mother saw a photo of Aliya on a news report Tuesday night and came forward to identify her, police said.
Sheriff's detectives later learned that on the night Aliya was discovered, her mother was in the process of filing a missing person's report for the girl and Ikramulla with police in Round Lake, where all three live together.
Ikramulla has a degree in electrical engineering and MBA. According to his LinkedIn profile, he was most recently working as a contractor from home.
Round Lake police said they had never had contact with the family before this incident, but it is not Ikramulla's first run-in with the law.
According to an article in the Times of Northwest Indiana, Ikramulla was arrested in May 2014 after he allegedly attacked Portage, Indiana, police officers during a traffic stop.
According to the article, police responded to a call about a suspicious vehicle and a man urinating in a yard, but when an officer approached Ikramulla's car, he drove off, and hit a police officer and several police vehicles.
Portage police used multiple stun guns to subdue Ikramulla and he repeatedly shouted "There is only one true God" and "Allah Hu Akbar" while being arrested, the article says. Two police officers were hospitalized following the arrest.
Ikramulla pleaded not guilty to 11 felony and eight misdemeanor counts including battery to law enforcement, criminal recklessness and leaving the scene of an accident. His attorney told the court that Ikramulla had been experiencing mental problems, difficulty sleeping, anxiety and panic attacks.
"Ikramulla was hospitalized by his family for a few days in Illinois and was placed on several medications," the article read. "(His attorney) said Ikramulla claims he was hallucinating during some of the incidents that led to his arrest."