Supreme Court Accepts Widow’s Appeal

(Compass) – In a surprise decision, the Supreme Islamic Court of Jordan has accepted Christian widow Siham Qandah’s last possible appeal to retain custody of her two minor children. Qandah’s lawyer was informed on August 20 that the Supreme Court will hear his appeal of a lower court decision granting custody of the widow’s daughter Rawan, 16, and son Fadi, 14, to the children’s maternal uncle. The ruling came two months after Amman’s Al-Abdali Sharia Court refused to cancel Abdullah Al-Muhtadi’s guardianship of the children, despite evidence that he had withdrawn nearly 12,000 Jordanian dinars ($17,650) from their U.N.-allocated trust funds. Al-Muhtadi, Qandah’s estranged brother who converted to Islam as a teenager, first filed for custody of the children in 1998 so that he could raise them as Muslims. The case has since come to the attention of several members of the Jordanian royal family, who have pledged that Qandah will not lose her children or be sent to jail. Nevertheless, a formal judicial solution has remained elusive.