Russian woman sentenced for kidnapping daughter

A French court has awarded a two-year suspended sentence to a Russian woman accused of kidnapping her daughter and orchestrating an attack on her ex-husband.

Though Irina Belenkaya will not be serving her sentence in prison, Judge Paulette Leclanche put her on probation for five years as well as ordered that she should pay her French ex-husband Jean-Michel Andre 8,000 euros ($10,300) in moral compensation.

Belenkaya said she was satisfied as the sentence for her is conditional and she would not go to prison.

The couple has been embroiled in a bitter custody battle resulting in their daughter Elise being "kidnapped" back and forth three times between 2007-2009. Andre was awarded custody by a French court after their divorce in 2007.

In March of 2009, Elise Andre, who was three years old at that time, was snatched from her father in southern France, by three attackers, one of who Jean-Michel Andre said was Belenkaya. He was severely beaten in the attack.

Belenkaya was arrested the following April in Hungary, attempting to take her daughter across the border into Ukraine.