Child Abduction

AuthorInternational Law Group

Fazal Raheman, then living in the U.S., and Saihba Ali married in India in May 1990. They moved to Massachusetts where their daughter was born in 1992. Four years later, a son arrived. The marriage was not going well, though. In 1997, Ali and the children moved into a separate apartment.

Raheman secretly installed a video camera in Ali's bedroom, had a private investigator follow her around, asked his nephew to move into Ali's apartment building to spy on her, and tapped Ali's telephone. In November 1997, he traveled to his former home in Nagpur, India, enrolled his daughter in school there and filed a custody petition in the Nagpur Family Court.

Later he went back to the U.S. Under the pretext of taking the children to a museum, Raheman took them back to India. Ali contacted the police and obtained an emergency custody order in a Massachusetts court. Raheman obtained his own custody order from the Nagpur Family Court.

In July 2001, a federal grand jury indicted Raheman under the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act (IPKCA), 18 U.S.C. Section 1204. It provides in part that "(a) Whoever removes a child from the United States, or attempts to do so, or retains a child (who has been in the United States) outside the United States with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both."

Federal authorities arrested Raheman in the U.S. and convicted him of kidnapping. Raheman noted an appeal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirms in part, vacates in part and remands for resentencing.

On appeal, Raheman argued, inter alia, that the evidence failed to show a crime under the IPKCA because the alleged conduct was not criminal under Massachusetts law. Disagreeing, the Court finds that such a prosecution comports with the language and intent of the statute. Massachusetts law does not criminalize any of Raheman's actions because no proceedings had been pending at that time. This, however, does not prevent Congress from acting on its own basis. "In 1993, by virtue of its commerce power ..., and to 'deter the removal of children from the United States to foreign countries in order to obstruct parental rights,' Congress passed the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act to create a new 'federal felony offense ....' H.R. Rep. No. 103-390, at 1 (1993)

... The legislative history explains that IPKCA was enacted as a domestic response...

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