A Spanish Mother Wins Custody of  Her Son Over His Muslim Father [Archives:2000/14/Front Page]

Last Saturday, 1st of April, the eight-year-old kid Eniko Bomagart was handed over to his non-Muslim Spanish mother, Marriam Ameerana, in the house of Sheik Abdullah Bin Hussien Al-Ahmar, Speaker of the Parliament in the presence of the General Attorney Abdullah Al-Olufi. The father of the kid is German Muslim who named himself Sharaf Al-Deen after embracing Islam. He also changed his son’s name to become Moneer Sharaf Al-Deen. The kid was originally taken by the father from Spain on December 1998 and then brought to Sana’a through Switzerland. The father has been studying in Al-Imaan University since then.

The kid was sent to his mother according to a sentence from Sana’a South-East Court. The process took place in the presence of Spain’ non-resident ambassador to Sana’a who interfered in favor of the Spaniard mother. He has talked to the Ministry of Interior for this very purpose. The mother, on her part, had promised not to try to affect the kid’s religious beliefs that his father taught him after becoming Muslim. She had got two court orders that permit her to take her son: the first from Spain and the second from Yemen after two months of trial.
Many legal and political sources in Yemen claim that the sentence was more politically-oriented than judicial. The reason behind this view is that the Ministry of Interior has sent the kid back to his mother before the sentence was passed, meaning that they had a previous knowledge that the sentence would be on the mother’s side though it is known, that by our law, the custody goes always to the Muslim parent.
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