Tug-of-love over Scottish girl in Pakistan goes on

LAHORE, Pakistan, Sep 6 (Reuters) Decisions by Pakistani courts today raised prospects of a lengthy custody battle over a 12-year old Scottish girl who says she wants to stay with her father in Pakistan rather than go home to her mother in Britain.

The father of Molly Campbell said his former wife, Louise Campbell, spoke to their daughter on the telephone from Britain, and told the girl she would come to Pakistan to fight a case that has stirred widespread public interest in Britain.

''She talked to her mother in the morning and her mother indicated she would come to Pakistan to fight the case,'' the father told Reuters after one of two court hearings in Lahore today.

''Misbah told her mother that she should not come to fight the case but to meet her,'' Rana said, using the girl's Muslim name.

Molly, known by the Muslim side of her family as Misbah Iram Ahmed Rana, told news conferences during the past few days that she wanted to stay in Pakistan and live with her father, and said her mother had tried to convert her to Christianity.

A civil court today allowed Rana to keep temporary custody of the girl until the next hearing set for September 30, Zainul Abedin Bokhari, the father's lawyer, told Reuters.

Lawyers shielded the girl from journalists' questions at the courthouse, where she was accompanied by her father and an elder sister, and the court said she would not be required to attend future hearings unless called. Earlier in the day, according to Bokhari, the Lahore High Court said it wanted to get testimony from the provincial Punjab government and police at another hearing on Friday, before deciding whether to extend a protection order stopping authorities from sending Campbell home.

British police launched an investigation after Campbell left her mother -- her legal guardian -- in the Western Isles of Scotland to travel to the Pakistani city of Lahore with her father, and her elder sister.

Pakistan and Britain signed an agreement in 2003 under which police and judicial authorities in both countries help each other solve some 400 such cases of children brought from UK to Pakistan every year.

REUTERS SSC BS1631