Local father struggles to reunite with his daughter
Young girl abducted by mother in Pakistan
By Carissa Marsh cmarsh@theacorn.com

WENDY PIERRO/Acorn Newspapers MISSING PIECE OF HIS HEART—Usman Malik of Simi Valley shows off a picture of his 5-year-old daughter Michelle, who he hasn't seen since January. Malik's ex-wife took the couple's daughter to her native Pakistan and has refused to return her.

In January of this year, Simi resident Usman Malik drove his exwife, Tasleem Gul, and their young daughter Michelle to the airport.

Upon reaching LAX, Malik prepared himself to say goodbye to his 4yearold daughter, who was joining her mother on a three-week trip to Pakistan to visit family.

It never occurred to Malik that it might be the last time he'd see Michelle.

Seven months later, he is fighting to have his daughter returned to him.

"I have not talked to my daughter since Jan. 21," said Malik, 35. "After that, I haven't gotten any emails, any phone calls, so I don't know what condition she's in. I'm just really worried about her."

Two days after his ex-wife, who Malik was married to for four years, left the country, she called to tell him they had made it to Pakistan.

However, Malik's later attempts to contact Gul, 24, went unanswered for two weeks before she finally picked up the phone.

"She said, 'I'm not coming back; you're never going to see your daughter, and if you come to Pakistan, my dad's a major in the army; he's going to kill you,'" Malik said.

A few days later, her number was disconnected.

Malik said he believes Gul, who was born and raised in Pakistan and had only been in the United States for about five years, is now living with her parents near Lahore, Pakistan, with their only child.

"I'm worried about (Michelle) because Pakistan is an Islamic country," Malik said. "There's a lot of violence; there's a lot of bombs going off in the city; there's always protests; there's food and water shortages. . . . Plus she's an American citizen, and kidnapping of American citizens is very common over there."

Malik, an American citizen himself, has since sought recourse in the justice system, both here and abroad, hiring U.S. and Pakistani attorneys to plead his case and working with agencies at different levels of government.

Yet he has run into one obstacle after another, sometimes finding dead ends and unreturned phone calls instead of help in his quest to reunite with his daughter.

After filing child abduction and missing person reports with the Simi Valley Police Department, Malik contacted Dep. District Attorney Tom Johnson, who works in the child abduction and recovery unit in the Ventura County district attorney's office.

"These international cases are difficult because they are outside the jurisdiction of California, so we have to rely on our federal authorities for assistance, and they rely on international treaties," Johnson said.

That is the main problem holding back Malik's case—the fact that Pakistan does not have an extradition treaty.

"Many countries subscribe to the Hague Convention, and it established a mechanism for solving the difficult and very emotional custody disputes that arise between Americans and parents from other countries," said Steve Royster, spokesperson for Consular Affairs at the Department of State. "While the Hague Convention is not necessarily binding, it established a good framework for the parents to work from."

Unfortunately, Pakistan is not a part of the convention, which further limits Malik's legal options.

The frustrated father has continued to reach out to the State Department's Office of Children's Issues, as well as other federal agencies, including the Pakistani consulate in West Los Angeles and the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan.

Progress was finally made last week when Johnson issued an arrest warrant for Tasleem Gul, something Malik had been pushing the D.A. to do for months.

"The United States has no (legal) authority outside of its borders, so that would be up to the Pakistani authorities," if they abided by the arrest warrant, Johnson said.

Johnson added that it can be extremely difficult to get children back from other countries, particularly Islamic countries, because they don't consider parental child abduction to be a crime and they don't want to subject their citizens to criminal penalties.

But with an arrest warrant issued, Malik feels more confident that he will see his daughter again soon.

"I'm really happy that finally got taken care of. That's half the solution right there," he said. "It was a long time coming."

Although the warrant has no authority in Pakistani courts, it can serve as evidence that an abduction actually took place. In the U.S., the issuance of a warrant moves Malik's case from being a child custody dispute to a criminal case.

While Malik and his ex-wife shared 50/50 custody of their daughter, Gul was able to gain full legal custody in Pakistani courts on April 12—nearly two weeks before the first official court date for the case in Pakistan.

Malik's Pakistani attorney was able to get that ruling dismissed and move the case to Pakistan's Supreme Court, where there have since been five hearings. Some headway was made at the last trial on July 10 when the judge ruled that the U.S. court should have custody of Michelle. The judge also took the young girl's passport, believing the mother might flee to another country.

Malik said he has thought about just going to Pakistan himself, despite his exwife's warning, to try to get his daughter back, but his name has been put on a "no fly" list—something Malik believes to be the work of his former father-in-law.

"As much as I'd like to go to Pakistan to retrieve my daughter myself, I won't make it past the airport," he said.

Despite all these obstacles, Malik said the most difficult day of the year was his daughter's 5th birthday.

"June 9 was my daughter's birthday, and that was one of the toughest days of the year for me," Malik said. "I pulled out all my daughter's old (home) videos and pictures and just spent the whole day watching them. I spent most of the day at home just thinking about my daughter."

After exhausting most of his legal options, Malik does see a light at the end of the tunnel. He already has plans for how they will celebrate her homecoming.

"I'm going to take her to Disneyland," he said. "That's her most favorite place in the world. I can't get her to leave at the end of the day. We'll probably spend a week in Disneyland."

For more information on international parental child abduction, visit the State Department's Office of Children's Issues website at travel.state.gov/family/abduction/ abduction_580.html or the Ventura County district attorney's site at da.countyofventura.org/ child_abduction.htm.