Ali Al Aazawi was convicted in May 2021 of kidnapping in violation of a court order. In June 2018, Zainab Mahdi initially agreed to let her then 10-year-old daughter Zahraa travel to Egypt, but Al Aazawi was due to return the girl in September. Instead, she violated the court-ordered parenting agreement and left the child in Iraq to have complete control over his education.
“Ongoing and life-changing”
On Tuesday, the Alberta Supreme Court agreed with prosecutor Tom Spark and called Al Aazawi’s actions “cruel and reprehensible” and found that the judge did not consider all aggravating factors when imposing the two-year sentence. “There are not many conditions worse than the ongoing and deteriorating situation imposed on Mr Al Aazawi. [Zahraa] and her mother,” reads part of the court’s 50-page decision. “[Al Aazawi] he didn’t just ignore court orders. from the beginning, he tried by his own means to subvert a parental order, including alienation [Zahraa] from her mother and forcing Ms. Mahdi to relinquish her parental rights.” Al Aazawi’s lawyer, Balfour Der, asked for a sentence of less than two years, but his appeal was rejected. Mahdi has not seen her daughter for more than four years and the child has since been convinced that she is better off in Iraq and does not want to see her mother.
brain Wash
When Zahraa first arrived in Iraq in 2018, she sent text messages to her mother indicating she was scared and wanted to go home. In Iraq, Al Aazawi has two wives and other family members. By 2021, the girl did not want to return as she appeared to have been brainwashed, expressing what the judge described as “anger and bitterness” towards her mother. In their announcements in 2018, Zahraa told her mother that her father had made plans to stay in Iraq for five years so he could go to school and learn about the local culture and religion.
Mother hospitalized for depression
While Al Azawi was still in Iraq with Zahraa, police recorded a conversation between him and his ex-wife. During that conversation, he said he would allow his daughter to return on the condition that he would have sole custody of Zahraa. The day after police recorded the conversation, Al Azawi returned to Canada without his daughter. The police learned of his travel plans and arrested him at the Toronto airport. The mother has been suffering from depression since her daughter’s abduction to the point where she is hospitalized. Mahdi has not seen her daughter for more than four years and said that if she had known that June 2018 was the last time she would see Zahraa, she would have preferred to die.
