“I am now paying monthly money to my alleged daughter. This is a downright case of blackmail. I appeal to the authorities to relieve me of this unjust verdict and to stop this blackmail,” said Saeed Jameel.

Jameel said he secretly married a Nigerian woman who worked as a maid for his mother over 23 years ago when he was in his early 20s. “We fell in love; this was before my second marriage. The woman was illegally living in the Kingdom. I married her at a local mosque and there were two Nigerians who witnessed the marriage,” he said.

Three months later, Jameel’s family discovered the marriage and forced him to divorce the woman. “She went away and I didn’t hear anything from her after that. Fours years ago, I received a telephone call from a Nigerian person living in Makkah who told me that my 18-year-old daughter had come from Nigeria and wanted to see me,” he said.

He added that he refused to given in easily and that after three months of negotiations he agreed to see her in the presence of a translator because she did not speak Arabic. “I insisted on seeing her mother to make sure she was my daughter. Her mother was now working as a housemaid with a Saudi family in Taif. She insisted that the girl was mine and that she was pregnant when she left my mother’s home. She also said she sent her daughter back to Nigeria to live with an elderly woman there,” he said.

Jameel said his ex-wife told him that when her daughter turned 18 she insisted on knowing who her father was and so she brought her to the Kingdom. “She insisted that I recognize my daughter and add her to my family ID. Because adding her to my family is a long process, I insisted she come and live with me and my family,” he said.

“She stayed with us for three months and then one day at midnight two Saudi sisters came to my house. They made a lot of noise accusing me of denying my own flesh and blood. They took the girl with them and one of them filed a lawsuit against me at the General Court even though, according to regulations, they had no right to do that as they are not related to me or the girl,” said Jameel.

He said he asked the judge to order DNA tests to prove that the young girl was his daughter but the judge refused and issued a ruling that he pay her SR500 a month.

“For about four years now I am paying alimony to the Civil Rights Department in Makkah … my daughter now lives with these two Saudi women who have no legal rights over her,” he said.

Jameel said he is fed up paying the money and is calling on the authorities to put an end to this and to order a DNA test to prove he is the father. Lawyer Badr Al-Rouki, a member of the Arab Lawyers' Union, said Jameel can take the case to the Court of Appeals and then the Supreme Court because the General Court, which issued the initial ruling, rejected his request for DNA tests.

“According to Shariah, the girl should be living with her father unless he is insane or a drug addict or something like that,” he said, adding that the two Saudi women have no right to receive the cash from the Civil Affairs Department. “Only the  individual concerned or his or her legal representative can do that,” he said.