Events
1777 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Bennington - British forces are defeated by American troops.
1780 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Camden - The British defeat the Americans near Camden, South Carolina.
1812 - War of 1812: American General William Hull surrenders Fort Detroit without a fight to the British Army.
1819 - Eleven people die and 400 are injured by cavalry charges at the Peterloo Massacre at a public meeting at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, England.
1841 - U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
1858 - U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal will force a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
1868 - Arica, Peru (now Chile) is devastated by a tsunami which followed a magnitude 8.5 earthquake in the Peru-Chile Trench off the coast. The earthquake and tsunami killed an estimated 25,000 people in Arica and perhaps 70,000 people in all.
1896 - Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack and Dawson Charlie discover gold in the Klondike in Canada.
1913 - Tōhoku Imperial University (modern day Tōhoku University) admits its first female students.
1915 - World War I: Should victory be achieved over the Central Powers, the Triple Entente promises the Kingdom of Serbia: the Austro-Hungarian territories of Baranja, Srem, Slavonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina; and the eastern 2/3 of Dalmatia (from the river of Krka to the city of Bar).
1920 - Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians is hit in the head by a fastball thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees, and dies early the next day. To date, Chapman is the only player to die from injuries sustained in a Major League Baseball game.
1928 - Murderer Carl Panzram is arrested in Washington, DC after killing 20 people.
1930 - The first color sound cartoon, called Fiddlesticks, is made by Ub Iwerks
1942 - World War II: - The two-person crew of the U.S. naval blimp L-8 disappear without a trace on a routine anti-submarine patrol over the Pacific Ocean. The blimp drifts without her crew and crashlands in Daly City, California.
1946 - The Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, is established, and Ichirō Ishikawa is appointed its representative.
1954 - Sports Illustrated magazine is first published.
1960 - Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
1960 - Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,330 m), setting three records that still stand today: high-altitude jump, free-fall, and fastest speed by a human without an aircraft.
1962 - The Beatles fire drummer Pete Best and replace him with Ringo Starr.
1964 - Vietnam War: A coup d'état replaces Duong Van Minh with General Nguyen Khanh as President of South Vietnam. A new constitution is established with aid from the U.S. Embassy.
1966 - Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong. The committee intends to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 people are arrested.
1972 - The Royal Moroccan Air Force mistakenly fires upon, but fails to bring down, Hassan II of Morocco's plane while he is traveling back to Rabat.
1974 - The Ramones play their first ever show at the CBGB's.
1984 - Carmaker John De Lorean is acquitted of all eight counts of possessing and distributing cocaine.
1987 - A McDonnell Douglas MD-82 carrying Northwest Airlines flight 255 crashes on takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport killing 155 people onboard, with the sole survivor four-year old Cecelia Cichan).
1993 - The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is founded by Ian Murdock.
1996 - Sigma Beta Rho is founded at the University of Pennsylvania.
2003 - U.S. Representative from South Dakota Bill Janklow hits and kills a motorcyclist with his car at a rural intersection near Trent, South Dakota; he will eventually be convicted of manslaughter and will resign from Congress.
2005 - West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 crashes near Machiques, Venezuela, killing the 160 aboard.
[edit]
Births
1355 - Philippa Plantagenet, Countess of Ulster
1378 - Hongxi Emperor of China (d. 1425)
1557 - Agostino Carracci, Italian artist (d. 1602)
1596 - Frederick V, Elector Palatine (d. 1632)
1645 - Jean de La Bruyère, French writer (d. 1696)
1650 - Vincenzo Coronelli, Italian cartographer and encylopedist (d. 1718)
1682 - Louis, Duke of Burgundy, heir to the throne of France (d. 1712)
1832 - Wilhelm Wundt, German psychologist (d. 1920)
1845 - Gabriel Lippmann, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1921)
1860 - Jules Laforgue, French poet (d. 1887)
1862 - Amos Alonzo Stagg, American coach (d. 1965)
1868 - Bernarr McFadden, American publisher (d. 1955)
1884 - Hugo Gernsback, Luxembourg-born editor and publisher (d. 1967)
1888 - T. E. Lawrence, English writer and soldier (d. 1935)
1888 - Armand J. Piron, American musician (d. 1943)
1892 - Otto Messmer, American cartoonist (d. 1983)
1894 - George Meany, American labor union leader (d. 1980)
1895 - Albert Cohen, Swiss novelist (d. 1981)
1895 - Liane Haid, Austrian actress (d. 2000)
1902 - Georgette Heyer, English novelist (d. 1974)
1904 - Wendell Meredith Stanley, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
1911 - E. F. Schumacher, German economist and statistician (d. 1977)
1912 - Ted Drake English footballer (d. 1995)
1913 - Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1992)
1920 - Charles Bukowski, American poet (d. 1994)
1923 - Millôr Fernandes, Brazilian cartoonist and playwright
1924 - Fess Parker, American actor
1925 - Willie Jones, baseball player (d. 1983)
1928 - Ann Blyth, American actress
1929 - Helmut Rahn, German footballer (d. 2003)
1930 - Robert Culp, American actor
1930 - Frank Gifford, American football player and announcer
1931 - Eydie Gorme, American singer
1933 - Julie Newmar, American actress
1937 - David Anderson, Canadian politician
1939 - Trevor Mcdonald OBE, Television Newsreader
1940 - Bruce Beresford, Australian film director
1946 - Massoud Barzani, Iraqi Kurdish politician
1946 - Lesley Ann Warren, American actress
1950 - Hasely Crawford, Trinidad and Tobago athlete
1952 - Reginald VelJohnson, American actor
1953 - Kathie Lee Gifford, French-born singer and actress
1954 - James Cameron, Canadian film director
1958 - Angela Bassett, American actress
1958 - Madonna, American singer and actress
1960 - Timothy Hutton, American actor
1964 - Jimmy Arias, American tennis player
1967 - Ulrika Jonsson, Swedish-born television personality
1968 - Mateja Svet, Slovenian alpine skier
1972 - Stan Lazaridis, Australian footballer
1974 - Robin Hull, Finnish snooker player
1974 - Krisztina Egerszegi, Hungarian swimmer
1976 - Jonatan Johansson, Finnish footballer
1978 - Eddie Gill, Professional basketballer
1980 - Vanessa Carlton, American singer, songwriter, and pianist
1980 - Robert Hardy, English bassist (Franz Ferdinand)
1981 - Taylor Rain, American actress
1987 - Kyal Marsh, Australian actor
[edit]
Deaths
1027 - Giorgi I, King of Georgia (b. 998)
1327 - Roch, French saint
1358 - Duke Albert II of Austria (b. 1298)
1419 - Wenceslaus, King of the Romans, King of Bohemia (b. 1361)
1443 - Ashikaga Yoshikatsu, Japanese shogun (b. 1434)
1445 - Margaret of Scotland (Dauphine of France), wife of Louis XI. (b. 1424.
1518 - Loyset Compère, French composer
1532 - John, Elector of Saxony (b. 1468)
1661 - Thomas Fuller, English churchman and historian (b. 1608)
1678 - Andrew Marvell, English poet (b. 1621)
1705 - Jakob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and scientist (b. 1654)
1733 - Matthew Tindal, English deist (b. 1657)
1791 - Charles-François de Broglie, marquis de Ruffec, French soldier and diplomat (b. 1719)
1886 - Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Indian guru (b. 1836)
1893 - Jean-Martin Charcot, French neurologist (b. 1825)
1899 - Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, German chemist (b. 1811)
1907 - James Hector, Scottish geologist (b. 1834)
1921 - King Peter I of Serbia (b. 1844)
1938 - Robert Johnson, American singer and guitarist (b. 1911)
1938 - Andrej Hlinka, Slovak politician and priest (b. 1864)
1948 - Babe Ruth, baseball player (b. 1895)
1949 - Margaret Mitchell, American novelist (b. 1900)
1956 - Bela Lugosi, Hungarian actor (b. 1882)
1957 - Irving Langmuir, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
1959 - Wanda Landowska, Polish harpsichordist (b. 1879)
1973 - Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1888)
1975 - Vladimir Kuts, Ukrainian-born runner (b. 1927)
1977 - Elvis Presley, American singer and actor (b. 1935)
1979 - John Diefenbaker, thirteenth Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1895)
1988 - Keema, Almost Famous
1983 - Earl Averill, baseball player (b. 1902)
1989 - Amanda Blake, American actress (b. 1929)
1997 - Gerard McLarnon, Irish playwright and actor (b. 1915)
2002 - Abu Nidal, Palestinian political leader (b. 1937)
2002 - Jeff Corey, American actor (b. 1914)
2003 - Idi Amin, Ugandan dictator (b. 1928)
2004 - Ivan Hlinka, Czech hockey coach (b. 1950)
2004 - Robert Quiroga, American boxer (b. 1969)
2005 - Frère Roger of Taizé, Swiss monk and mystic (b. 1915)
Saturday, April 08, 2006
The Jacqueline Gillespie case. Hero or Villain?
The recent Jacqueline Gillespie case has interested me a lot. For those who have not heard of it, Jacqueline Gillespie is an Australian mother that had her 2 children taken from her, illegally from the perspective of Australian law, and legal from the perspective of Malaysian law. This is because her husband, the cousin of the current Terengganu Sultan, remarried and she immediatly took her kids to Australia and divorced him. Readers, what say you all?
Side 1 - Jacqueline Gillespie is a villain
She is of course talking about Raja Bahrin, cousin to the present Sultan of Terengganu. What happened was, Raja Bahrin married a second wife and Jacqueline Gillespie ran off to Australia taking the children with her. At first Raja Bahrin would not allow her to take the children with her but she bluffed him that her mother was very sick and dying so, out of compassion, Raja Bahrin agreed.
I, in fact, met her at Subang Airport the day she left for Australia and she was sobbing as she told me the story. She also said she had no money so I gave her what little I had on me. Little did I realise she had cleaned out her bank account and was quite loaded.
Once she reached Australia she filed for a divorce and brought the children to church to be baptised. Jacqueline told the court that she badly treated, beaten every day, and was practically a slave back in Malaysia; so she dared not return to Malaysia to file for a divorce, as she should have done since she was married in Malaysia under Malaysian law and according to Islamic rites. This was definitely not true. Tengku Ampuan Bariah, the late Sultan’s consort, loved Jacqueline like her own daughter (because she had no children of her own) and Jacqueline went about the palace like she was born a princess.
Raja Bahrin then filed for custody of the children but lost. Raja Bahrin’s Australian lawyer did not think they were going to win as, what he said, “Two of the three judges are Jews so, as a Muslim, you have very little chance in this courtroom.” By the way, the lawyer who said this is not Muslim but Christian.
The court then gave Raja Bahrin visiting rights a couple of times a year. However, every time he wanted to visit the children, his passport and air ticket would be impounded. He would also be searched and all his cash plus watch and other valuable would be confiscated. Further to that, there would be two guards who would stand watch the entire hour or so he spent with the children and Raja Bahrin was not allowed to touch the children or have any physical contact with them whatsoever. He was also not allowed to talk about Islam to the children.
After a few years, the rules were relaxed as the authorities felt that Raja Bahrin had been behaving himself all those years. Nevertheless, the no cash or valuables and impounded passport and air ticket ruling remained. But he was allowed to spend some time alone with the children as long as they were sent back at the end of the day in exchange for his passport and air ticket.
Raja Bahrin could take it no longer. One day, leaving his passport and air ticket behind, he took the children for a long drive to the coast and jumped onto a boat that had been prior-arranged for the ‘great escape’. In the middle of the high seas, the boat developed engine trouble and it drifted for many days until it was rescued by the Indonesian Navy and towed to safety. It was sheer luck Raja Bahrin and the kids did not bump into any pirates or got swept under in a storm. The Indonesian Navy personnel told Raja Bahrin that, one day late, and they would have been history because his boat was drifting towards cannibal-infested territory (it is surprising that such things still exist in this day and age).
Raja Bahrin’s and Jacqueline Gillespie’s story is certainly a tragedy but the way Farah related it paints him as a villain. I know both husband and wife very well and it pains me to see this happen. After they divorced, I met Jacqueline in one of my trips to Australia and we do still communicate via e-mail from time to time. But to say it serves Raja Bahrin right for marrying two wives would be as fair as saying it serves Anwar Ibrahim right for getting beaten up and jailed on sodomy charges because he refused to bail out Dr Mahathir’s son’s shipping company with Petronas’ money.
Anyway, the point to all this, Farah’s piece on royals and polygamy plus references to Raja Bahrin has not been presented in the right perspective. In any story, there is always the other side of the coin and all may not be what it seems. And as much as you may want to think poorly of the late Sultan of Selangor for marrying a young wife after the Tengku Ampuan died, there were hidden hands paying the role of matchmaker with the objective of controlling the institution of the palace.
Excerpt from malaysiakini.com
Jacqueline Gillespie - Hero
"Once I was a Princess" is a book about how a woman's determination to continue to fight for her two kidnapped children's basic human rights saw her redefine her identity and role in society from distraught mother to a humanitarian activist on the world stage.
Jacqueline Pascarl Gillespie who joined us on Saturday's show was racially and sexually abused as a child. Her dysfunctional childhood left her vulnerable to the heady proposition of being swept of her feet by a seemingly gentle and urbane foreign student, Prince Raja Bahrin. They moved to Malaysia where they married and Jacqueline was re-educated and moulded in the disciplines of a princess and an obedient Muslim wife.
Back in his own country it bore no resemblance to the quiet student of their whirlwind courtship and she was treated by her husband as little more than a brood mare and decorative appendage. Forced to suppress her intellect and endure physical brutality, Princess Yasmin, as she was now known, maintained a carefully constructed facade of aristocratic solidarity. In just four years, a fairytale romance begun in the soft Melbourne spring of 1980 had turned into a nightmare of Islamic superstition, isolation, rejection, betrayal and abuse.
The birth of her two children steeled her resolve and determination to raise them far from the rotten atmosphere where she was living. Following the disintegration of her marriage (her husband had bigamously married a night club singer) she returned to Australia with the children and built up a career for herself in TV and radio.
After seven years of freedom her life took another turn in 1992. Her vengeful husband abducted both children in a cloak and dagger operation and managed to flee the country by sailing from Queensland to Indonesia in a tiny motor cruiser. Since then and despite diplomatic lobbying, legal challenges and humble pleas, Jacqueline has been allowed no contact with her kidnapped children, Iddin who is 16 and Shahirah, 14.
Succumbing to grief was never an option for Jacqueline. Instead she focused on providing support for other parents in similar circumstances and is now an acknowledged international expert on parental child abduction. She has emerged from her ordeal a stronger and more independent woman, forging a place for herself with humanitarian aid work in Bosnia and Africa.
The publication of her book "Once I was a Princess" coincides with this month's European conference on parental child abduction organized by the London based charity Reunite.
excerpt number 2:
9.39 In 1992, Mrs Jacqueline Gillespie's two children were abducted from Australia in defiance of an Australian Family Court custody order. The children's father smuggled the children out of Australia on a small boat back to Malaysia.
9.40 Malaysia is not a party to The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Therefore, the Convention could not be used to return the children to Australia on the grounds of their habitual residence in Australia.
9.41 Both children have dual nationality. They obtained Malaysian nationality by birth and acquired Australian nationality by descent from their Australian mother on registration at the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.
9.42 The children's father had obtained custody orders from the Islamic religious court in his home state in Malaysia before coming to Australia to abduct the children. Under the Malaysian law, the father had legal custody of the children. It was open to Mrs Gillespie to challenge the custody orders in the Malaysian courts, but she decided not to proceed. Lawyers for the Australian High Commission advised that such a challenge would have been a test case for Malaysian law on the question of whether the civil or the religious courts have jurisdiction in custody cases involving religiously mixed marriages. The Australian Government, through the Attorney-General's Department, offered Mrs Gillespie financial assistance so that she could obtain legal advice in Malaysia on the prospects of legal action in the Malaysian courts to obtain the return of the children.
9.43 Because the children are Malaysian citizens and living with their father, the Australian High Commission had no legal grounds to request access to the children to determine their welfare. However information about the children gained by the High Commission has been relayed to Mrs Gillespie through DFAT.
9.44 The Australian Government requested the extradition of the children's father to face charges in Australia relating to his breach of the Family Court orders. The Malaysian Government refused that request, on the grounds that his action did not constitute a crime in Malaysian law. As noted in paragraph 6.129, 'the 'dual criminality test' is standard procedure in extradition cases.
9.45 DFAT submitted that this case illustrated how different legal systems can give different verdicts in custody cases and the importance of The Hague Convention to enable return of children to their normal place of residence. It further illustrates the Government's inability to intervene in private legal disputes and where dual nationality is involved.[20]
from the australian government website
This case has had many films and books written about it. What do you think?
Side 1 - Jacqueline Gillespie is a villain
She is of course talking about Raja Bahrin, cousin to the present Sultan of Terengganu. What happened was, Raja Bahrin married a second wife and Jacqueline Gillespie ran off to Australia taking the children with her. At first Raja Bahrin would not allow her to take the children with her but she bluffed him that her mother was very sick and dying so, out of compassion, Raja Bahrin agreed.
I, in fact, met her at Subang Airport the day she left for Australia and she was sobbing as she told me the story. She also said she had no money so I gave her what little I had on me. Little did I realise she had cleaned out her bank account and was quite loaded.
Once she reached Australia she filed for a divorce and brought the children to church to be baptised. Jacqueline told the court that she badly treated, beaten every day, and was practically a slave back in Malaysia; so she dared not return to Malaysia to file for a divorce, as she should have done since she was married in Malaysia under Malaysian law and according to Islamic rites. This was definitely not true. Tengku Ampuan Bariah, the late Sultan’s consort, loved Jacqueline like her own daughter (because she had no children of her own) and Jacqueline went about the palace like she was born a princess.
Raja Bahrin then filed for custody of the children but lost. Raja Bahrin’s Australian lawyer did not think they were going to win as, what he said, “Two of the three judges are Jews so, as a Muslim, you have very little chance in this courtroom.” By the way, the lawyer who said this is not Muslim but Christian.
The court then gave Raja Bahrin visiting rights a couple of times a year. However, every time he wanted to visit the children, his passport and air ticket would be impounded. He would also be searched and all his cash plus watch and other valuable would be confiscated. Further to that, there would be two guards who would stand watch the entire hour or so he spent with the children and Raja Bahrin was not allowed to touch the children or have any physical contact with them whatsoever. He was also not allowed to talk about Islam to the children.
After a few years, the rules were relaxed as the authorities felt that Raja Bahrin had been behaving himself all those years. Nevertheless, the no cash or valuables and impounded passport and air ticket ruling remained. But he was allowed to spend some time alone with the children as long as they were sent back at the end of the day in exchange for his passport and air ticket.
Raja Bahrin could take it no longer. One day, leaving his passport and air ticket behind, he took the children for a long drive to the coast and jumped onto a boat that had been prior-arranged for the ‘great escape’. In the middle of the high seas, the boat developed engine trouble and it drifted for many days until it was rescued by the Indonesian Navy and towed to safety. It was sheer luck Raja Bahrin and the kids did not bump into any pirates or got swept under in a storm. The Indonesian Navy personnel told Raja Bahrin that, one day late, and they would have been history because his boat was drifting towards cannibal-infested territory (it is surprising that such things still exist in this day and age).
Raja Bahrin’s and Jacqueline Gillespie’s story is certainly a tragedy but the way Farah related it paints him as a villain. I know both husband and wife very well and it pains me to see this happen. After they divorced, I met Jacqueline in one of my trips to Australia and we do still communicate via e-mail from time to time. But to say it serves Raja Bahrin right for marrying two wives would be as fair as saying it serves Anwar Ibrahim right for getting beaten up and jailed on sodomy charges because he refused to bail out Dr Mahathir’s son’s shipping company with Petronas’ money.
Anyway, the point to all this, Farah’s piece on royals and polygamy plus references to Raja Bahrin has not been presented in the right perspective. In any story, there is always the other side of the coin and all may not be what it seems. And as much as you may want to think poorly of the late Sultan of Selangor for marrying a young wife after the Tengku Ampuan died, there were hidden hands paying the role of matchmaker with the objective of controlling the institution of the palace.
Excerpt from malaysiakini.com
Jacqueline Gillespie - Hero
"Once I was a Princess" is a book about how a woman's determination to continue to fight for her two kidnapped children's basic human rights saw her redefine her identity and role in society from distraught mother to a humanitarian activist on the world stage.
Jacqueline Pascarl Gillespie who joined us on Saturday's show was racially and sexually abused as a child. Her dysfunctional childhood left her vulnerable to the heady proposition of being swept of her feet by a seemingly gentle and urbane foreign student, Prince Raja Bahrin. They moved to Malaysia where they married and Jacqueline was re-educated and moulded in the disciplines of a princess and an obedient Muslim wife.
Back in his own country it bore no resemblance to the quiet student of their whirlwind courtship and she was treated by her husband as little more than a brood mare and decorative appendage. Forced to suppress her intellect and endure physical brutality, Princess Yasmin, as she was now known, maintained a carefully constructed facade of aristocratic solidarity. In just four years, a fairytale romance begun in the soft Melbourne spring of 1980 had turned into a nightmare of Islamic superstition, isolation, rejection, betrayal and abuse.
The birth of her two children steeled her resolve and determination to raise them far from the rotten atmosphere where she was living. Following the disintegration of her marriage (her husband had bigamously married a night club singer) she returned to Australia with the children and built up a career for herself in TV and radio.
After seven years of freedom her life took another turn in 1992. Her vengeful husband abducted both children in a cloak and dagger operation and managed to flee the country by sailing from Queensland to Indonesia in a tiny motor cruiser. Since then and despite diplomatic lobbying, legal challenges and humble pleas, Jacqueline has been allowed no contact with her kidnapped children, Iddin who is 16 and Shahirah, 14.
Succumbing to grief was never an option for Jacqueline. Instead she focused on providing support for other parents in similar circumstances and is now an acknowledged international expert on parental child abduction. She has emerged from her ordeal a stronger and more independent woman, forging a place for herself with humanitarian aid work in Bosnia and Africa.
The publication of her book "Once I was a Princess" coincides with this month's European conference on parental child abduction organized by the London based charity Reunite.
excerpt number 2:
9.39 In 1992, Mrs Jacqueline Gillespie's two children were abducted from Australia in defiance of an Australian Family Court custody order. The children's father smuggled the children out of Australia on a small boat back to Malaysia.
9.40 Malaysia is not a party to The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Therefore, the Convention could not be used to return the children to Australia on the grounds of their habitual residence in Australia.
9.41 Both children have dual nationality. They obtained Malaysian nationality by birth and acquired Australian nationality by descent from their Australian mother on registration at the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.
9.42 The children's father had obtained custody orders from the Islamic religious court in his home state in Malaysia before coming to Australia to abduct the children. Under the Malaysian law, the father had legal custody of the children. It was open to Mrs Gillespie to challenge the custody orders in the Malaysian courts, but she decided not to proceed. Lawyers for the Australian High Commission advised that such a challenge would have been a test case for Malaysian law on the question of whether the civil or the religious courts have jurisdiction in custody cases involving religiously mixed marriages. The Australian Government, through the Attorney-General's Department, offered Mrs Gillespie financial assistance so that she could obtain legal advice in Malaysia on the prospects of legal action in the Malaysian courts to obtain the return of the children.
9.43 Because the children are Malaysian citizens and living with their father, the Australian High Commission had no legal grounds to request access to the children to determine their welfare. However information about the children gained by the High Commission has been relayed to Mrs Gillespie through DFAT.
9.44 The Australian Government requested the extradition of the children's father to face charges in Australia relating to his breach of the Family Court orders. The Malaysian Government refused that request, on the grounds that his action did not constitute a crime in Malaysian law. As noted in paragraph 6.129, 'the 'dual criminality test' is standard procedure in extradition cases.
9.45 DFAT submitted that this case illustrated how different legal systems can give different verdicts in custody cases and the importance of The Hague Convention to enable return of children to their normal place of residence. It further illustrates the Government's inability to intervene in private legal disputes and where dual nationality is involved.[20]
from the australian government website
This case has had many films and books written about it. What do you think?
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