Dubai: A woman imposed a travel ban against her ex-husband who defied a Dubai Court ruling that awarded her the custody of their nine-year-old son.
Dubai Police is searching for the 45-year-old South East Asian man after an application for his arrest was filed by Emirati lawyer, Awatif Mohammad Khouri from Al Rowaad Advocates, representing the child’s mother.
According to the lawyer, on April 12 this year, the Dubai Court of Personal Status awarded custody of the child to his 38-year-old South East Asian mother.
However, the father failed to comply with the court order and an application for his arrest was filed with the court, the lawyer said.
Dubai Police then discovered that the man had resigned from his job. They are now trying to locate him, but to ensure he doesn’t leave the country with the child, the woman’s lawyers have had a travel ban imposed against him.
“The case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction by the courts of first instance and appeal,” Emirati lawyer Khouri told the court.
“The cassation court then overturned the rulings and ordered the referral of the case to a new panel of judges at the court of first instance,” th lawyer said.
Judges were told that after the couple got divorced in their home country two years ago, the father had taken the boy on a “fake vacation” to Dubai before he stopped responding to his mother in December 2018.
After the father arrived with the boy in Dubai, he sent a message to the mother that he was breaking her heart by taking the boy away and that he had got a travel ban issued against the boy to keep him.
The mother filed a custody case against her ex-husband in Dubai which was dismissed by the courts of first instance and appeal before being heard again in the first instance court following the ruling of the cessation court.
In the court hearings, judges were told the father had not been providing for his family prior to the couple’s divorce.
A witness who was flown from the South East Asian country to which the couple belong to testify informed judges how the father had signed the official document to send the boy back to his mother but instead held him back.
Following the lawyer’s argument, the custody was awarded to the mother but her reunion with the son was halted as flights were suspended in the wake of the pandemic outbreak.
In his ruling, presiding judge Faraj Mousa Al Galawi said that even without a request from her, the mother is the most deserving of the custody of her young son.
“The legislator was keen on keeping custody of youngsters to mothers because mothers are more compassionate and patient in caring for their children during their first years,” said judge Al Galawi who ordered to cancel the boy’s travel ban issued by the father, return him to his mother and hand over his passport to her.
