The father of a four-year-old girl has filed a judicial protest holding the Police Commissioner, the Customs' Controller and the Attorney General responsible for allowing his daughter to be taken to Libya.

He said there was the real danger that the girl would remain in Libya where she would be brought up according to Islam and where he would not be able to see her.

In the protest, filed in the First Hall of the Civil Court, the father explained that on June 28 he had filed an application against the girl's mother who had the care and custody of their daughter. He had asked the court to issue a warrant of prohibitory injunction stopping the mother from taking the girl out of Malta.

He explained that a few months ago the mother married a Libyan man and converted to Islam. A few weeks ago, the mother asked him to sign a form allowing her to take the girl on a one-week holiday to Libya and he signed.

The father said he then learnt that the mother intended to move to Libya with her new husband's family and raise the girl there according to Islam. This meant he would no longer have access to his daughter, as established in a Family Court ruling. Besides, he strongly objected to his daughter's upbringing as a Muslim.

He added that she had been allowed to leave Malta for a country that did not adhere to the international convention on child abduction.

On June 28, the Family Court had provisionally upheld the father's request (to issue a warrant stopping the girl from leaving) and put off the case to yesterday.

However, on June 29 the mother's husband phoned him up and told him that the girl was in Libya and that all his efforts had been useless.

The father said the Police Commissioner and the Customs Controller did not abide by the Family Court's ruling to stop his daughter from leaving and, as a result, he would suffer incalculable damages. He held them liable in damages.

Names are not being published to protect the identity of the minor.

Lawyer Malcolm Mifsud signed the protest.

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