An Iraqi girl - her father is on trial in Canada on charges of kidnapping her and leaving her with his family in her native Iraq - denied that she had been brainwashed to stay there, and confirmed that this accusation is unfounded.
The Canadian newspaper Calgary Herald quoted Zahra Al-Azzawi - in her video testimony from her home in Baghdad - as saying that staying in Iraq was her personal decision all the time, despite pleas from her father and other family members to return to Canada.
Al-Azzawi (13 years) rejected suggestions from her mother, who lives in the Canadian town of Calgary, that she was forced to refuse to return to the house, and that she was brainwashed, and she confirmed that this is not true.
Zahra acknowledged that her refusal to return to Canada complicates her father's case, but stressed that he did nothing, and the measures taken against him are fundamentally unnecessary.
Last Monday, a Canadian court began the proceedings of the trial of Zahra’s father on charges of kidnapping his daughter from Canada and keeping her with his family in Iraq during the summer of 2018, to remove her from her separated mother.
The Canadian "cbc" channel said in a report published last Tuesday that Zainab Mahdi, who lives in Calgary, Canada, had not seen her daughter Zahra Al-Azzawi for more than two years, after her father, Ali Al-Azzawi, took her and traveled to Egypt for a 3-month vacation in 2018 Later, she discovered that her daughter was in Iraq, not in Egypt.
According to the channel, the mother separated from her husband in 2012, and their divorce was completed in 2017, after she said that her husband was physically and psychologically abusing her, and she asked the court to protect her.
A year later, the father asked to accompany his 11-year-old daughter Zahra on a trip to Egypt, “extending from June 16 to September 5, 2018, and the mother signed a document allowing him to do so.
According to the Canadian prosecutor, Al-Azzawi showed his ex-wife a flight itinerary, but within weeks, the mother learned that her daughter was in Iraq, not Egypt.
At first, the mother and daughter were in contact, and exchanged text messages, but on September 5th Zahra did not return to Canada as scheduled.
In April 2019, the father returned to Canada alone without his daughter, and was arrested at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and his lawyer confirmed that Zahra did not want to return to Canada, and that her father could not force her.
During court sessions, several judges tried to set conditions on Al-Azzawi in an attempt to facilitate the child's return to Canada, but all of them failed. Al-Azzawi was released on bail, and his trial is due to resume next month.