National Post (National Edition)

Daughter refused to leave Iraq, court hears

KIDNAPPING

- KEVIN MARTIN

The preteen daughter of a Calgary man refused to return to Canada after a Middle East summer vacation, the dad’s lawyer told his kidnapping trial Monday.

Defence counsel Balfour Der said the decision to remain in Iraq instead of returning to Calgary in September 2018 was made by then-12-year-old Zahraa Al Aazawi.

“Mr. (Ali) Al Aazawi tried on numerous occasions to have his daughter come back to Canada with him, but she refused and the daughter also refused her mother’s attempts to get her to return,” Der told provincial court Judge Greg Stirling.

“Indeed, she still refuses today. So the defence will be that there is no kidnapping because the daughter left (Canada) with the consent of the mother and there is no child abduction, or kidnapping because when Mr. Al Aazawi attempted to bring the girl home as scheduled, the girl refused and evidence will be called to explain why a 12-year-old could not be forced to get on a plane by Mr. Al Aazawi.”

Al Aazawi faces charges of internatio­nal kidnapping and child abduction against a parental custody order in connection with incidents between June 16 and Sept. 5, 2018, when he took his daughter overseas.

In an opening address to the court, Crown prosecutor Martha O’Connor said the child’s mother, Zainab Mahdi, agreed to allow her ex-husband to take their daughter to Egypt for the summer.

O’Connor, who argued the girl was only 10 at the time, turning 11 while overseas, was supposed to be returned home on Sept. 5, to enter Grade 6. But sometime during the agreed-upon trip to Egypt, Al Aazawi took Zahraa to the couple’s native Iraq.

“Ms. Mahdi will say she did not consent to the child being taken to Iraq,” O’Connor said.

Despite the arrangemen­t made between the parents, the girl was not returned to Calgary as planned, the prosecutor said.

In conversati­ons in March and April 2019, between the parents, which were recorded under a judicial authorizat­ion, the accused confirmed the girl was in Iraq, O’Connor said.

Al Aazawi returned to Canada on April 4, 2019, and was arrested at Pearson Internatio­nal Airport and returned to Calgary.

While the girl remains in Iraq, O’Connor told Stirling she will attempt to call Zahraa as a witness and if that is unsuccessf­ul will ask the judge to allow What’s App exchanges she had with her mother into evidence.

Postmedia News

 ??  ?? Zahraa Al Aazawi
Zahraa Al Aazawi

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada