Coronavirus impact: 9-year-old in UAE awaiting flight to reunite with mother

Dubai - The father had signed an undertaken in a Malaysian court to bring the boy back but he didn't.

A Malaysian mother will be reunited with her son, who was abducted by his father, as soon as the international flight restrictions will be eased in the UAE.
The mother's legal battle for the custody of her nine-year-old son was heard by all three court levels over a span of one year before the Dubai Court of Personal Status awarded custody to the 38-year-old mother. Earlier, the case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction by the courts of the first instance and appeal.
The case was then moved to the cessation court which overturned the rulings of the lower courts and ordered a new panel of judges at the court of the 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 said the father had signed an undertaken in a Malaysian court to bring the boy back but he didn't. "After he arrived in Dubai, he sent a message informing her that he will burn her heart by taking the boy away. He also issued a travel ban on the boy to keep him here," Awatif told judges.
The mother then filed a custody case against her ex-husband in Dubai. 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 the mother is the most deserving of the custody of her child.
The boy's return to his mother in Malaysia is being arranged, added Awatif.
afkarali@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai