Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/NEW YORK: The US Justice Department on Thursday charged a New York woman’s brother, and father for kidnapping her from Mexico, where she was planning to wed, and forcibly took her to Yemen for an arranged marriage.
According to the AFP, Khaled Abughanem and Waleed Abughanem have been arrested and charged with conspiracy to kidnap a person in a foreign country, which carries them to life in prison if convicted.
The US Justice Department said that in early September 2021, the unnamed woman, an adult United States citizen and a university student, traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico, to marry her fiance, whom she was known for nine years, without her family’s knowledge.
The indictment said that when they found out, her family went to Mexico and physically forced her to return home against her wishes.
According to the indictment, back in Buffalo, she was forced to withdraw from the university, denied Internet and social media access, not allowed contact with her United States fiance, and locked in her house.
US justice department stance
The US Justice Department said, “The victim was told if she didn’t comply and agreed to the arranged marriage, she would be locked up in her house without contact with the outside world forever, and her fiance would be killed.”
Under pressure, in late September, she flew with her family to Egypt and then Yemen, failing in many attempts to flee from hotel rooms and airports.
According to the woman’s account, the indictment said that in Cairo, her father told her: “You are no longer in the West, you are in the Middle East, women as you has killed,”.
Once in Yemen, they traveled to Houthi-controlled areas where her father told her he would be paid 500,000 dollars for the arranged marriage.
The statement said her father beat and choked her when she refused her.
The marriage had not been arranged, and in April 2022, most of the family departed Yemen, leaving her in control of her brothers in a Sanaa apartment.
The indictment did not say how United States justice authorities learned of her plight in late 2022.
But the indictment referred to an unnamed non-profit organization that has become an advocate for her and supplied details of her situation.
