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********** NEW HOPE IN SIGHT FOR JORDANIAN CHRISTIAN WIDOW Court Case Challenges Muslim Guardian’s Custody by Barbara G. Baker

Summary: HUSN, Jordan, May 30 (Compass) — One of Jordan’s top law firms filed a request this week for a change in the legal guardianship of Christian widow Siham Qandah’s two minor children. Qandah’s attorneys are expected to produce hard evidence before an Amman court of Islamic law that her children ‘s court-authorized Muslim guardian has embezzled at least 13,000 dinars ($20,000) from a trust fund established for her daughter Rawan, 15, and son Fadi, 14. The children’s father, a soldier in the Jordanian army, died in Kosovo in 1994 while serving with U.N. peacekeeping forces, leaving military benefits that the children were to inherit at age 18. Lawyers associated with Jordan’s royal family have obtained proof that the children’s guardian, an estranged uncle, has illegally appropriated more than half of the U.N. trust fund. “As a Muslim, I am very ashamed that this was done in the name of Islam,” said Prince Mired bin Raed, commenting on the case. “This has nothing to do with religion, it is not even a human rights case. It is a simple case of fraud, done in a very manipulative way.” Qandah’s new lawyers estimate that within a month’s time, they will win a court decision to cancel the uncle’s legal guardianship, thereby nullifying court orders for Qandah to surrender her children to him.

Full Story: HUSN, Jordan, May 30 (Compass) — One of Jordan’s top law firms filed a new case this week before the country’s Islamic courts, requesting a change in the legal guardianship of Christian widow Siham Qandah’s two minor children.

Qandah’s attorneys are expected to produce hard evidence before an Amman court of Islamic law that her children’s current Muslim guardian has embezzled at least 13,000 Jordanian dinars ($20,000) from the orphan benefits held in trust for her daughter Rawan, 15, and son Fadi, 14.

The children’s father, a soldier in the Jordanian army, died in 1994 while serving with U.N. peacekeeping forces in Kosovo. Through the military benefits deposited in a trust fund after their father’s death, the children were to inherit $35,000 when they reach legal adulthood at age 18.

But lawyers who provide counsel for members of Jordan’s royal family have obtained proof over the past two months that Rawan and Fadi’s court-authorized guardian has illegally appropriated more than half of the children’s U.N. trust fund.

“We now have documents to prove that the present guardian is disqualified to exercise custody over the children,” a member of the law firm told Compass last week. “We have everything on our side,” he continued. “He has misused his authority, and he will be jailed if he cannot pay back the money he has stolen.”

The children’s Muslim guardian, who is Qandah’s estranged brother, converted to Islam as a teenager. Now named Abdullah al-Muhtadi, he is married with several children and said to be serving as a mosque prayer leader.

Shortly after the death of Qandah’s Christian husband, she learned that a “conversion” certificate filed in a local Islamic court stated that he had converted to Islam three years earlier. She and her family were incredulous, but the alleged conversion could not be contested under Jordanian law. Since both underage children were now legally considered Muslims as well, Qandah asked her brother to be their court-designated Muslim guardian.

But al-Muhtadi often failed to transfer the children’s monthly stipends over the next few years, and in 1998 he opened a court case demanding custody of the children so he could raise them as Muslims. Al-Muhtadi said he objected to them being raised by their mother, who had enrolled them in Christian instruction at school and took them to a local Baptist church.

After four years of court proceedings, Jordan’s Supreme Court ruled in February 2002 that Qandah must relinquish her children to al-Muhtadi’s custody. But despite several subsequent court ultimatums ordering Qandah to surrender her children or face arrest, local authorities have yet to enforce the ruling.

In an audience granted in Amman last week, Prince Mired bin Raed of the Jordanian royal family confirmed to Compass that Qandah’s case had been brought to the personal attention of King Abdullah II after news coverage about it appeared in the international press.

“His Majesty was concerned that she and her children would be properly protected,” Prince Mired said, “and he had been assured months ago that her case was being resolved.” But when it became known in mid April that she still needed expert legal counsel, the prince asked his personal lawyer to investigate the case.

After a thorough examination of the case files, the prince’s lawyer concluded that the attorneys hired to represent Qandah at the lower, appellate and supreme court levels had failed to defend her adequately. “They were not well qualified,” he noted.

“Religion has been used, or I should say misused, in this case,” Prince Mired said. “It is so blatantly obvious that injustice has been done.”

“As a Muslim, I am very ashamed that this was done in the name of Islam,” the prince continued. “This has nothing to do with religion, it is not even a human rights case. It is a simple case of fraud, done in a very manipulative way.”

Qandah’s new lawyers estimate that within a month’s time, they will win a court decision to cancel al-Muhtadi’s legal guardianship.

But under Jordanian law, the children will still be required to have a court-sanctioned Muslim guardian and maintain Muslim identities until they become 18, when they are allowed to choose their official religious status.

Over the past 15 months, the widow and her children have gone into hiding on four different occasions, sometimes for weeks at a time, fleeing their small whitewashed cottage in Husn for refuge with relatives and friends in other towns and cities. The upheaval has disrupted the children’s lives, affecting their schoolwork, emotions and friendships.

“Their classmates just repeat what they’ve heard around Husn,” one family friend commented last week, “but it hurts Rawan and Fadi to hear these comments. Technically they are Muslims now, even if it’s just for a few years, so the Christian community shuns them, and they won’t want them to marry into their families later on.”

According to one of her brothers, Qandah turned down a recent offer of a steady job in Husn, her hometown of some 25,000 located 50 miles north of Amman. “She can hardly manage and really needs the money, but she is so afraid she may have to flee again, to hide herself and the children.”

“Siham has really sacrificed to keep her faith and her kids,” the brother said. “There’s just no stability in her life right now.”

END

***New photographs of Siham Qandah with her children in Husn and during her audience with Prince Mired are available electronically. Contact Compass Direct for pricing and transmittal.

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