The U.S. government has warned a Virginia judge that an American Marine’s adoption of an Afghan war orphan was flawed and could be seen as international child abduction
The Masts and the girl’s Afghan relatives, who are suing to get her back, have been ordered not to speak publicly about the case, and their lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
In arguing that the girl should be returned to her Afghan relatives, the Justice Department wrote that the Masts, who were living in Fluvanna County at the time, convinced their local circuit court judge Richard E. Moore in 2019 that the child — 7,000 miles away — was the “stateless” daughter of foreign fighters from an unknown neighboring country, and that the Afghan government intended to waive jurisdiction over her. A year later, Moore, who has since retired, made the adoption permanent.
At the time, the baby was in the custody of the U.S. government, being treated at a military hospital in Kabul. The Afghan government was tracking down relatives, a State Department official wrote, and found an uncle who reported that the girl’s father, a farmer, had been slain in the raid, along with his wife and five other children.
The Red Cross took her to the Afghan family, who wept when they met her, according to a State Department declaration attached to the court filings. A young newlywed couple, the child’s cousin and his wife, raised her for the next 18 months.saying it has acted appropriately by supporting efforts to find the girl’s surviving kin and reunify the family in Afghanistan.
When the Afghans arrived at a refugee resettlement camp in Virginia, the Justice Department wrote, Mast presented the adoption order to federal employees, who didn’t know that the U.S. government had already deemed his claim to the girl to be flawed. Unwittingly, those employees helped Mast take custody of the child, and she’s been with him ever since.
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