Pakistani court asks Scottish mother to appear

The Sunday Telegraph
September 02, 2006 11:57pm

Source: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,20344360-5005962,00.html

A PAKISTANI court gave temporary custody of a 12-year-old Scottish girl at the centre of an abduction row to the father today and invited the mother to a second hearing next week, a court official said.

British police launched an investigation after Molly Campbell left her mother - her legal guardian -in the Western Isles of Scotland to travel to the Pakistani city of Lahore with her father, Sajad Ahmed Rana, and her elder sister.

"The judge gave temporary custody of the child to the father and asked the mother to appear before the court to give her version," said a court official.

Ms Campbell's mother, Louise, has made an emotional plea for her daughter to return home, while her grandmother was quoted in British newspapers as saying she thought the girl could be forced into an arranged marriage.

But the girl, who is also known as Misbah Iram Ahmed Rana, told the court she wanted to live in Pakistan.

"I arrived in Pakistan of my free will to live with my father," she said.

The court said the father could not take the girl out of Lahore and set the next hearing for September 6.
There are about 400 cases of British children of Pakistani descent being abducted and brought to Pakistan every year, said an official at the British High Commission in Islamabad.

Most of the cases are resolved under an agreement signed by Pakistan and Britain in 2003.
"Its basis is that the child's best interests are best taken care of by the courts (in the country) in which the child is resident," the official said.