The children’s mother, Sabrina Albrecht, asked the court to order their return to Malta. Photo: Matthew MirabelliThe children’s mother, Sabrina Albrecht, asked the court to order their return to Malta. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

A court has ordered social welfare agency Appoġġ to immediately start court proceedings to bring back two German children who were “illegally” flown out of Malta in June.

It also ordered the Police Commissioner to investigate the circumstances leading to the illegal removal of the children from Malta.

Magistrate Joanne Vella Cuschieri ruled that the children, Jeremias, four, and Jaydan, two, should be brought back as they had been removed unlawfully.

The children’s mother, Sabrina Albrecht, asked the court to order her children’s return to Malta.

In a previous decree, Magistrate Vella Cuschieri lambasted the agency for the way it had handled the case and for allowing German social workers to take the children to the beach unattended.

She said the boys had been entrusted to Appoġġ and had been living in a home in Malta when they were secretly flown out. The fact that they were taken away from the island in breach of a court order was already enough for a request to be filed for their return in accordance with The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction.

It is not the agency’s role to decide whether the claim for the return of minors to the Maltese islands is justified because that decision rests with the competent court

Appoġġ objected to the mother’s request, saying the court had no jurisdiction to order their return and that it (the agency) “had acted in good faith”.

However, the magistrate again criticised the agency, saying it had the right to file an application for the children’s return “but it chose not to do so, citing legal reasons”.

“It is not the role of Appoġġ... to decide whether or not the claim for the return of the minors to the Maltese islands is justified because that decision rests with the competent court after a claim is filed in accordance with the convention,” the court ruled.

“The third parties who took the children to Germany without the knowledge of the Maltese authorities acted in breach of the same convention upon which they were resting their case to be granted the right to take back the children.

“Such illegal actions cannot be left unaddressed by the Maltese authorities.”

The magistrate therefore ordered the Director of Social Welfare Standards, as the central authority in Malta, to immediately initiate proceedings requesting the return of the children.

Magistrate Vella Cuschieri also ordered that the Police Commissioner is notified of the decision so that “the necessary investigations are held according to law to establish who were the people behind the illegal [removal] of the two minors” and to take all other action he deems fit.

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