A MAN and his sister have filed a suit against his ex-wife, the government and five other parties over the alleged abduction of his two children who were then taken to New Zealand four years ago.

The plaintiffs, Mohd Saleem Mohammad Aslam, 35, and Kalsum Mohammad Aslam, 38, filed the suit through Messrs Haziq A Subhi & Co at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on May 10, naming his former wife Faith Kimberly Hepburn @ Ashalina Hepburn Abdullah as the defendant. 

Also named as defendants are the Immigration Department director-general, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) immigration director, the Immigration Department, an immigration officer, the government, and lawyer Jennifer Jayalitha Chandran.

Based on the statement of claims, both plaintiffs alleged the immigration director-general (first defendant), immigration director (second defendant) and Immigration Department (third defendant) had committed negligence when the plaintiffs found that his son and daughter had been kidnapped by Hepburn (the seventh defendant), who then fled Malaysia without any justification and valid official documents, in addition to the falsification of information on the documents.

The son and daughter are now 10 and eight years old, respectively. 

The plaintiffs claimed that after the children disappeared from under their care, they had lodged two police reports to inform the first to the third defendants as early notifications for fear the children would be taken out of the country by Hepburn and her lover Atabek Yechshanov, a Kazakh citizen.

“Subsequent failure and negligence can be seen when the first to third defendants and the fourth defendant allowed the children to leave the country using New Zealand passports without detailed inspection.

“The Malaysian government as the fifth defendant had failed, refused or was negligent in allowing the incident to occur and negligence to be committed by the first to fourth defendants,” said the statement of claims. 

In addition, the plaintiffs alleged that Jennifer Jayalitha had acted negligently when she failed to obtain detailed information from Hepburn when the latter applied for renunciation of citizenship, because during that time, Hepburn and Saleem were in the midst of shariah court proceedings that began in 2016.

The plaintiffs claimed that Hepburn had falsified her ex-husband’s signature in the application form and Jennifer Jayalitha, who was acting as her lawyer, failed to check the authenticity of the signature.

They claimed as a result of the negligence and failure of all the defendants, the plaintiffs and their families have faced various difficulties, incurred losses, and wasted time, energy and financial resources to settle custody claims in the New Zealand court.

The plaintiffs are seeking RM25 million in general damages from the first to fifth defendants in addition to general damages from the sixth and seventh defendants to be assessed by the court, in addition to special damages amounting to RM404,265.39 from all defendants, punitive damages and other relief deemed suitable by the court.

Checks on the court system found that the case has been fixed for case management before High Court deputy registrar R. Pushparasi on June 22. – Bernama, June 2, 2022.