Mother, son soon to be reunited after custody battle

Sohaila Ahmed, Staff Reporter

After restrictions on flights due to covid-19 were eased off in Dubai, a mother will soon be reunited with her son who was abducted by his father.

The mother’s legal battle for the custody of her son, 9, was heard by all three court levels over a span of one year before Dubai Court of Personal Status awarded custody to the 38-year-old mother, from Malaysia, on April 12.

Last year the case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction by the courts of first instance and appeal before it was heard by the Cessation court which then overturned the rulings of the lower courts and ordered the referral of the case to a new panel of judges at the court of first instance.

“After the couple divorced in their home country two years ago, the father, 45, took the boy on a vacation to Dubai before he stopped responding to the child’s mother in December 2018,” Emirati lawyer Awatif Khouri Mohammed from Al Rowaad Advocates representing the mother, told the court.

She argued that the father signed an undertaken in a Malaysian court to bring the boy back but he didn’t.

“But after he arrived to Dubai, he sent our client a message informing her that he will burn her heart by taking the boy away and that he issued a travel ban on the boy to keep him here,” Ms Awatif told judges.

Ms Awatif added, “What her ex-husband did, forced our client to file the custody case against him in Dubai.”

In a court hearing earlier this month, judges were told the father had not been providing for his family prior to the couple’s divorce and was abusive to the mother and neglectful of the child.

Presiding judge Faraj Mousa Al Galawi said in his ruling that the mother is the most deserving of the custody of her child even if she had not requested it.

“The mother is more compassionate and patient and more capable of providing care to her child in the early stages of his life, which is why legislators were keen on prioritising mothers in cases of custody unless valid evidence proves otherwise,” said the judge.  

The boy’s return to his mother in Malaysia amid these exceptional times is being arranged, said Ms Awatif.