THE mother of a 12-year-old at the centre of an international childcare battle was not fit to be her legal guardian because she was an “apostate” from Islam, according to legal documents placed before a court in Pakistan.
Misbah Iram Ahmed Rana, also known as Molly Campbell, said in a statement to a court in Lahore that it had become a “living hell” in her mother’s house in Stornoway in the Hebrides and that she had been forced to become a Christian.
The documents, released yesterday after a court in Lahore decided to award temporary custody to Misbah’s father, portrayed the dispute between her divorced parents as a battle between the strict morality of Islam and the dissolute ways of the West. Claims that she had been abducted with a view to her being forced into an arranged marriage were motivated by an “Islam-hating lobby” in Britain, according to papers filed on behalf of her father, Sajad Ahmed Rana.
For her to remain with her mother on the Isle of Lewis was unacceptable under Islamic law, he claims. The documents said that Misbah’s mother, Louise Campbell, 38, who was known as Shahza Ahmed Rana before her divorce from her husband in 2001, was now “living in sin with a total stranger”. They added: “If the girl was permitted to live in the household which is presided over by a stranger, it will be impossible to bring her up as a proper Muslim female. Indeed, the environment is likely to destroy and erode the moral fibre of her life.”
The culture clash between the life that Misbah can expect in Pakistan and the life Mrs Campbell is alleged to lead came as the child made an emotional appeal to her mother to leave her alone. “Why is she doing this when I will visit her? If she really loved me she would let me be where I want to be.”
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Her father said that Misbah had burst into tears when told that Mrs Campbell, her legal guardian in Britain, had begun proceedings in Scotland to get her back. It is ten days since Misbah disappeared from outside her school in Stornoway, sparking an international police hunt.
Beaming before the cameras for the second time in three days yesterday, the child, wearing a bright orange shalwar kameez and a similar butterfly pendant to that of her older sister, Tahmina, seemed increasingly confident in her new surroundings. “I’m a Muslim. I was born a Muslim and I want to live my life with my dad because he’s a Muslim,” she said.
Abdul Basit, Mr Rana’s lawyer, said that a judge at the District Court of Lahore had granted interim custody to his client on Saturday after the advocate argued that the lifestyle of Misbah’s mother made her an inappropriate guardian for a Muslim girl. The judge had summoned Mrs Campbell to appear before the court for a hearing on Thursday, until when Mr Rana has custody.
Yesterday Mr Rana said that he was prepared to pay for her to visit her daughter “for as long as she wants, [but] only if she were to abstain from liquor”.
Asked whether his client had any intention to go through the courts in Britain, Dr Basit said: “No. We have succeeded in doing what we wanted to do. A Muslim girl is back in a country that is supposedly governed by Sharia and now if Sharia prevails she cannot go back.”
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On Saturday night Mr Rana celebrated being reunited with his daughter by treating his family to dinner at a top Lahore hotel. Misbah claims that for more than a year her mother banned her from any contact with her father and sister.
With the legal tussle between her parents increasingly bitter, the schoolgirl said yesterday: “My mother has reconverted to Christianity after her divorce and has taken up her original name. She wants to bring me up as a Christian. I do not want to be a Christian. I love Scotland but I love Islam more.”
The court papers said that Misbah, like her three siblings, had become increasingly disillusioned by her mother’s way of life. They said that “then she made a determination to escape from the living hell of her mother’s home”.
Misbah’s sister and two brothers left their mother one by one after living with her for a period in Scotland.
Friends of Misbah in Stornoway, where she lived in a council estate, suggested yesterday that she may have been attracted by the wealth of her father, who is a financier.
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Mrs Campbell was not available for comment last night.