Pakistani father appeals against British girl's custody

ISLAMABAD, Dec 7 (Reuters) The Pakistani father of a British girl at the centre of an international custody dispute lodged a new appeal today against a court order to send her back to her mother in Scotland, his lawyer said.

Police in Britain launched an investigation in August after 12-year-old Molly Campbell left her mother in the Western Isles of Scotland to travel to the Pakistani city of Lahore to be with her father.

The girl, who is known by the Pakistani side of her family as Misbah Irum Ahmed Rana, says she wants to stay in Pakistan with her father.

She is due to be handed over to the British High Commission tomorrow after a ruling by a High Court in the eastern city of Lahore that she be returned to her mother.

But the father, Sajad Ahmed Rana, filed an appeal against that decision in the Lahore court.

A lawyer for the father said he had filed a new appeal with the Supreme Court, arguing that the Lahore court should not be dealing with the initial appeal.

''We will appear before the high court tomorrow and argue that it has no jurisdiction to hear the appeal and that's why we have filed an appeal with the Supreme Court,'' the lawyer, Malik Abdul Qayyum, told Reuters.

He said the Supreme Court would take up his petition tomorrow.

REUTERS PDM ND1448