ABU DHABI // A four-year-old girl in Abu Dhabi is at the centre of an international child custody case that pits her divorced American parents against each other from different sides of the world.
Sophie Azzolina goes to swimming and dance classes and has friends at her Abu Dhabi nursery school. Her mother describes her as "a bright and sweet little girl".
But while Sophie lives here with her father, Charles Azzolina-Michlin, who has been awarded custody by a UAE judge, her mother, Anna Sokolowska, lives in Texas, where she has been awarded custody by a US judge.
"Despite multiple arrest warrants for Sophie's father in the US, both state and federal, I have not been able to secure her return home to Texas," Ms Sokolowska said.
But Mr Azzolina-Michlin, a helicopter pilot, says he is acting in Sophie's best interests. "It's not as simple as it looks," he said. "Anna should never have been able to leave the country with Sophie, what she did was wrong, and she's gotten traction by jumping jurisdictions."
The couple moved to Abu Dhabi with baby Sophie in 2007 but their relationship began to deteriorate a year later. During a holiday in Kenya with Sophie in December 2008 Ms Sokolowska decided not to return to the UAE, and eventually took the child to Texas.
After she left, Mr Azzolina-Michlin was granted custody of Sophie by a UAE court.
However, a US court gave the couple joint custody in February 2010, and Mr Azzolina-Michlin was forbidden from taking Sophie to the UAE. He breached the order four months later, after telling a judge that he was taking Sophie to Italy, where he is a citizen.
A US federal warrant was issued last month for Mr Azzolina-Michlin’s arrest on charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution on child custody and kidnapping charges.
Stories such as Sophie’s are becoming increasingly common in the UAE, experts said. Because the country is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, and has its own child custody laws, foreign governments cannot enforce their own such laws here.
“What happens when you get a non-Hague Convention country, where there is no mechanism between countries, you are governed by the civil laws of the country where the child is,” said Sharon Cooke, a spokeswoman for Reunite International Child Abduction Centre, a UK-based charity.
Alexandra Tribe, a British family lawyer based in Dubai, said about 20 per cent of the cases she deals with, or about five a year, are related to child custody and alleged parental child abduction.
“I’ve seen considerably more cases while working here than in England,” she said.
The US State Department reported seven new cases of child abduction under US law, involving nine children, in the UAE in 2009, the last year data was collected. This number is up from six cases in 2008 and four cases in 2007.
The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office does not keep annual statistics, but 27 cases in the UAE have been reported since a child abduction unit was formed in 2003, with seven cases remaining active.
Jeremy Morley, a New York-based international family lawyer who has consulted in “a few dozen” UAE cases, said the increasing number could be attributed to the UAE’s high expatriate community.
“As more expats are coming and going, there’s a massive problem arising on where children are taken,” Mr Morley said. “It is increasing globally because travel is easier, and it’s increasing in the UAE in particular because the economy has been so active there. There’s so much more travel to and from.”
The return of children after they have been brought to the UAE from other countries is uncommon. Decisions are made under sharia and UAE courts may take into consideration the parents’ religion, place of permanent residence and income, as well as the age and sex of the children.
“This is the most challenging thing I have ever faced,” said Ms Sokolowska. “It’s crazy, because he’s residing in a different country and I have an order here, and it just doesn’t mean anything.”
Interpol has been notified of the US arrest warrant, but Abu Dhabi authorities would not take action on it here. The US Office of Children’s Issues has also met Sophie in the capital, but because there are no relevant treaties in force between the UAE and the US, it is “quite difficult to obtain the return of children from the UAE”, according to a letter from the director of the Office of Children’s Issues to Ms Sokolowska’s congresswoman.
The situation is similar for children brought from other countries. “A UAE lawyer would have to make a case in a UAE court,” said Ms Cooke, from Reunite International. “It is not common for returns to come from the UAE through the court system; a lot of the returns are voluntary.”
Mr Azzolina-Michlin said ideally he would like to have Sophie’s mother and younger sister, who is 19 months old, return to Abu Dhabi so that his daughters could be near both their parents.
“I’m between a rock and a hard place, and I have to do what’s best for my daughter,” Mr Azzolina-Michlin said.
jthomas@thenational.ae
TEST SQUADS
Bangladesh: Mushfiqur Rahim (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Liton Das, Shakib Al Hasan, Mominul Haque, Nasir Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Mehedi Hasan, Shafiul Islam, Taijul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed.
Australia: Steve Smith (captain), David Warner, Ashton Agar, Hilton Cartwright, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Matthew Wade, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Matt Renshaw, Mitchell Swepson and Jackson Bird.
Walls
Louis Tomlinson
3 out of 5 stars
(Syco Music/Arista Records)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
What is an FTO Designation?
FTO designations impose immigration restrictions on members of the organisation simply by virtue of their membership and triggers a criminal prohibition on knowingly providing material support or resources to the designated organisation as well as asset freezes.
It is a crime for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide “material support or resources” to or receive military-type training from or on behalf of a designated FTO.
Representatives and members of a designated FTO, if they are aliens, are inadmissible to and, in certain circumstances removable from, the United States.
Except as authorised by the Secretary of the Treasury, any US financial institution that becomes aware that it has possession of or control over funds in which an FTO or its agent has an interest must retain possession of or control over the funds and report the funds to the Treasury Department.
Source: US Department of State
The five pillars of Islam
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
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How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
In Full Flight: A Story of Africa and Atonement
John Heminway, Knopff
MATCH INFO
AC Milan v Inter, Sunday, 6pm (UAE), match live on BeIN Sports
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh132,000 (Countryman)
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