Photo has been used for illustrative purposes.

Sohaila Ahmed, Staff Reporter

Dubai Police are searching for the man who defied a court’s ruling that awarded his ex-wife the custody of their nine-year-old son.

The 45-year-old Malaysian man will be taken into custody once found, after an application for his arrest was filed by Emirati lawyer, Awatif Mohammad Khouri from Al Rowaad Advocates, representing the child’s mother.

Judges were informed how the man abducted his son from Malaysia in December 2018, two years after he and the child’s mother got a divorce.

He brought the child to Dubai after claiming to his ex-wife that he was taking the boy on a vacation.

When in Dubai, he stopped responding to the child’s mother. Instead, he sent her a text message threatening to break her heart by taking the boy away then issued a travel ban on the child to ensure he didn’t leave the country without his knowledge.

The woman filed a custody case against her ex-husband, but the case was dismissed by the Courts of First Instance and Appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

At the Cassation Court, the dismissal was overturned and a new panel of judges at the emirate’s personal status court heard her case again.

Presiding judge Faraj Mousa Al Galawi, was told that the father violated an undertaking he had signed in a Malaysian court pledging to bring the boy back.

He also heard how the man had not been providing for his family at their home country.

Examining evidence and documents, judge Al Galawi, awarded custody of the child to his mother who arrived in Dubai last July 8 when restrictions on international flights were eased, hoping to be reunited with her son.

“A mother is the most deserving of the custody of her child,” he said in his judgement.

After the man intentionally failed to follow the ruling from the Dubai Personal Status Court ordering him to hand the boy to his mother, an application for his arrest was filed with the court.

Searching for the father, police discovered he had resigned his job and are now trying to locate him, but to ensure he doesn’t leave the country and kidnap the child again, the woman’s lawyers had a travel ban imposed against the father.