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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Court Examines Moslem Embezzler's Guardianship of Christian Kids |
| 2004-09-05 |
| From Compass Direct In a surprise judicial decision, the Supreme Islamic Court of Jordan has accepted Christian widow Siham Qandah's last possible appeal to disqualify the court-approved Muslim guardian fighting to take custody of her two minor children. Qandah's lawyer was informed on August 20 that the Supreme Islamic Court had accepted his final appeal of a sharia court decision awarding custody of the widow's daughter Rawan, 16, and son Fadi, 14, to Abdullah al-Muhtadi. Although al-Muhtadi is the children's maternal uncle, he has been estranged from the family since his conversion to Islam as a teenager. The ruling came two months after Amman's Al-Abdali Sharia Court rejected Qandah's lawsuit to cancel Al-Muhtadi's legal guardianship. Despite evidence that the guardian had withdrawn nearly 12,000 Jordanian dinars ($17,650) from the children's U.N.-allocated trust funds, the presiding judge refused to investigate alleged misuse of the children's funds. Reportedly, the new Supreme Court decision has ordered the lower Islamic court handling the case to investigate the guardian's use of these large sums of money, designated for purchasing a refrigerator and paying lawyers' fees for the guardian's four-year court custody battle. .... Al-Muhtadi was named legal guardian of Qandah's children at her own request in 1995, after an Islamic court produced a so-called "conversion" certificate for her late husband. According to the document, her Christian husband had secretly converted to Islam three years before he died, while serving in the U.N. Peacekeeping Forces in Kosovo. Under Islamic law enforced in Jordan, the father's alleged conversion automatically changed the legal identity of his children to Muslim, so their financial affairs could no longer be handled by their Christian mother. But Al-Muhtadi began to appropriate some of the children's monthly orphan benefits, and then in 1998 he filed a case to take custody of them away from his Christian sister, so that he could raise them as Muslims. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #2 I am glad this story didn't fade away. Let's keep a bright light on it. |
| Posted by: jules 2 2004-09-05 2:04:22 PM |
| #1 Islam the religion of peace and justice. My ass. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-09-05 3:17:44 AM |