ISLAMABAD, 11 January 2007 — The mother of a Scottish schoolgirl at the center of a custody battle will drop her claim provided her daughter is allowed to travel to Scotland to meet her, the woman’s lawyer told the Supreme Court here yesterday.
The country’s top court adjourned the case till Jan. 17 and ordered 12-year-old Molly Campbell’s father Sajjad Ahmad Rana to bring her to the court for the next week’s hearing.
The court also directed Rana to allow Molly, who is also known as Misbah Iram Ahmad, to speak to her mother Louise Campbell by phone in Scotland.
The bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, took exception to the fact that Molly was not allowed to speak to her mother on phone. The chief justice also expressed his displeasure over the absence of the girl during yesterday’s proceedings.
“We order Sajjad Rana to bring his daughter to the court during the next hearing on Jan. 17 and he is directed to ensure the presence of Misbah during all the hearings till the time the court finally decides the case of her custodianship,” the chief justice remarked.
“The mother has told me that she would not press for custody order if her daughter is sent periodically to Scotland to meet her,” Campbell’s lawyer Naheeda Mahboob Illahi told the court. However, Rana’s lawyer Malik Muhammad Qayyum said his client was not comfortable sending Molly to Scotland, fearing her mother would not allow her to travel back to Pakistan.
Qayyum said Rana had offered to provide all facilities to enable the mother to come to Pakistan and meet Molly.
The court directed both the parties to bring their proposals and suggestions and said it would have no objection to an out-of-court settlement.
Molly has said all along that she wants to remain with her father. Despite her mother’s climbdown, Molly told a news conference yesterday that she had no wish to see her, or go back to Scotland.
“I don’t want to meet my mother. I don’t want to see her. She made me do things which I didn’t want to do,” Molly said, complaining that her name had been changed against her will. “I have my rights where I want to live. I have my rights whom I want to live with,” she said, wearing a white head scarf and a traditional Pakistani baggy tunic and trousers, but speaking in a light Scottish brogue. “I want to live in Pakistan. She can come and visit me. My Dad can come and visit me. Everybody can come and visit me, but I’m not going to go to Scotland to meet my Mom.”
Rana earlier told reporters after the court hearing that he could not bring Molly to court because she was sick. “She is quite stressed out by the court matter and fed up with the whole thing,” Rana said.
“I have never stopped my daughter from taking telephone calls from her mother. They speak to each other quite often and also exchange e-mails.” The Supreme Court intervened in the drawn-out international custody fight last month by admitting Rana’s appeal and suspended a Lahore High Court order to send her back to her mother in Scotland.
During her statements in the Lahore High Court and later in the Supreme Court Molly insisted that she was a Muslim and could not live with her mother.
