An Irish father faces a race against time to regain custody of his daughter in a complex legal process being contested in the Netherlands and Sri Lanka.
Ciarán Ó Faolain's four-year-old daughter Maya was taken by her Nepalese mother, Tejshree Thapa, in December 2004. She had failed to return with the child from a visit to Nepal.
Mr Ó Faolain - originally from Dublin but now living in the Netherlands - was subsequently granted custody by a Dutch district court but needed to travel to Sri Lanka, where Ms Thapa had taken Maya, in order to secure his daughter's return to the Netherlands.
Mr Ó Faolain made an application to the Central Authority in Colombo under the Hague Convention. Sri Lanka, the Netherlands and Ireland are all signatories to the convention and custody orders made in any of those states must be honoured in the others.
When the Central Authority didn't act on the case, Mr Ó Faolain filed a petition to the Sri Lankan Court of Appeal in an effort to force it to fulfil its obligations under the convention. The case was postponed when counsel for the Central Authority did not turn up.
But the story took a twist on Thursday when Mr Ó Faolain heard that the superior court in the Netherlands had awarded sole custody of his daughter to Ms Thapa. Mr Ó Faolain must now travel to the Netherlands in an effort to overturn that decision and return to Sri Lanka before the case is due to be heard on August 22nd.
"This is a moral outrage . . . and I am determined to fight it," said Mr Ó Faolain, who has petitioned the help of Bob Geldof, who is known to be a champion of the rights of single fathers.
Mr Ó Faolain alleged that having first abducted Maya from the Netherlands, Ms Thapa has since re-abducted her in Sri Lanka so that although he had full custodial rights until Thursday and still retains certain access rights, he has been unable to find her. He has not seen his daughter since July 22nd and does not know where she is. There are now fears that Ms Thapa may have left the country with her.
Maya is exclusively an Irish citizen and there are question marks over the legality of how she is travelling while under her mother's Nepalese passport.
Child law expert Geoffrey Shannon said that the Dutch court's decision to grant custodial rights to the mother was a blow to Mr Ó Faolain's battle and that it was vital to overturn that decision before asking the Sri Lankan Central Authority to abide by the Hague Convention.
"Unless Mr Ó Faolain is in possession of his custody rights it will be very difficult for him," said Mr Shannon.
The case highlights the complexities of what can happen to children in custody battles when relationships involving couples of different nationalities break up. It is a problem that will become more common in the future, said Mr Shannon.
"This is a particularly unusual and complex case but we are seeing more and more family law cases involving this kind of problem due to ease of mobility and the fact that more people are marrying outside their own nationality and culture," he said.
"Already there is increasing instance of children being abducted outside of the EU," he said, referring specifically to Muslim countries where the law was closely tied with religious teaching.