Iran court allows return of two girls to mother in Belgium

TWO sisters who took refuge in the Belgian embassy in Iran last year after being kidnapped by their father will be allowed to return to Belgium with their mother, the Iranian media reported yesterday.

Yasmine Pourhashemi, 15, and her six-year-old sister, Sara, were abducted by their father during a holiday in Greece and taken to Tehran. In December, they ran away from him and took refuge at the Belgian embassy.

The Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, was due to meet the Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, and foreign minister, Louis Michel, in Brussels yesterday but there was no official confirmation that the case had been resolved. "We hope things can be settled in the coming days or weeks, but we have no certainty yet that the work going on at this moment will reach result," Patrick Herman, the Belgian foreign ministry spokesman, said.

Last year, Belgium issued an international arrest warrant on kidnapping charges for the father, Shahab Salami, who took the girls without the permission of their mother, Zarah, a Belgian resident.

The Iranian judge in charge of the case said last year that the mother had to pursue the case through the Iranian law, which gives fathers custody of girls aged seven and over.

The mother travelled to Iran to resolve the case at the risk of facing a possible travel ban by her husband, the paper said. Under Iranian law, women need their husband’s permission to leave the country.