Alta woman says 2 daughters at heart of intn’l abduction case happy at home
By: The Canadian Press
at 14:07 on March 2, 2007, EST.
CALGARY (CP) – A Calgary woman says her two daughters are happy to be home after spending months outside the country last year in an alleged international abduction.
Making her first public appearance since secretly returning home to Canada last month, Melissa Hawach says she alone rescued her two girls Hannah and Cedar from a playground in Lebanon.
Hawach’s story, which garnered headlines around the globe, began last July when her children disappeared with her estranged husband during a three-week holiday to Sydney.
Joseph Hawach, a dual Australian-Lebanese citizen, allegedly abducted his daughters and took them to Lebanon while the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict raged.
After legal attempts to get her daughters back failed, Melissa Hawach allegedly hired Australian and New Zealand mercenaries to find them in Beirut.
Hawach’s story has already gained Holly
If my kid was kidnapped under such circumstances and I couldn’t get a fair hearing, I’d do the same thing.
The reason its OK is she never stopped the father from seeing his children in actual fact she sent them to have a holiday with him.He on the other hand shaved their hair to make them look different ,scared the hell out of them by taking them to a strange country that was at war at the time so he could stop their mother seeing them.So he broke the law first she was just doing what was in the best interests of the children they are 5 and 3 yrs old maybe he should have thought about them instead of himself and not kidnapped them in the first place.
International custody fights are a nightmare. If mom had legal custody, and dad took the children contrary to international agreements on family abductions… then he was guilty of parental abduction to start with. Her actions were to RETRIEVE children that were legally in her custody to begin with.
I am not claiming this are the facts… just going over how many of these cases happen. It isn’t right for either parent to abduct a child, contrary to court judgements as to who they should be with.