Father appeals Pak court to send child to UK

LAHORE, Pakistan, Dec 2: The Pakistani father of a British girl at the centre of a international custody dispute lodged an appeal today against a court order to send her back to her mother in Scotland within a week.

Police in Britain launched an investigation in August after the 12-year-old girl called Misbah Irum Ahmed Rana, known in Britain as Molly Campbell, left her mother in the Western Isles of Scotland to travel to Lahore to be with her father.

The girl says she wants to stay in Pakistan, and a lawyer for the father, Sajad Ahmed Rana, filed an appeal, asking the Lahore High Court to review its decision on Wednesday that she should be sent back to Britain within a week.

''I filed the appeal and requested the court to give the custody to the father as Misbah is a Muslim girl and a Pakistani passport holder,'' lawyer Abdul Basit told Reuters.

At least two judges are now expected to consider the intra court appeal challenging the decision by another judge.

In an interview with the BBC, Misbah said she was determined not to go back to live with her mother.

''I was really, really, really upset and I was really angry about what the judge said. When the judge left I was crying so much. And when we were coming back I was crying, I was crying so much all day,'' Misbah told the BBC.

''But I still keeping thinking 'no that's not true, he's going to change his mind' -- I'm going to have to stay here, I have to stay here, I am not going to go back,'' the BBC quoted Molly as saying.

The girl's mother, Louise Campbell, had refused to come to Pakistan for any hearings, but speaking after the victory on Wednesday, she sought to reassure her daughter by insisting the girl's views would be taken into consideration by a Scottish court that has still to decide over custody.

A court had earlier granted the mother interim custody.

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

Louise Campbell's lawyers in Scotland hope the girl would be returned to Scotland using that protocol.

REUTERS