Four sisters reunited with father in Italy

Share This
+ Comment
1
(AAP)

(AAP)

Four sisters at the centre of an international custody dispute have been reunited with their father in Italy.

Four sisters at the centre of an international custody dispute have been reunited with their father in Italy.

The older two girls arrived in Rome by plane late on Friday night, The Courier-Mail reported.

They were handed over to their Italian father at the airport.

The Family Court ordered the four sisters be deported after their mother brought them to Australia for a holiday in 2010 and never returned.

The girls' family in Australia are preparing to lodge an official complaint about the actions of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), according to the paper.

Federal police removed the sisters, aged nine to 15, from their Sunshine Coast home on Wednesday night.

The girls were separated on Thursday when two were removed from a flight from Brisbane in a highly emotional state.

A family member accused the AFP of mistreating the children and said a complaint would be lodged with the ombudsman.

"We will be pursuing the matter and will be expecting prompt responses and action," the family member told newspaper.

The family has also indicated they will consider a legal challenge in Italy.

The situation follows a ruling by the Family Court in Brisbane that there were no exceptional circumstances allowing it to disregard Australia's obligations under the Hague Convention on child abduction.

 

Your Comments

The judiciary is a joke

K Rawlins - from Redlands, 8 months ago

All Australians must be asking what the hell is going on in the minds of our esteemed judiciary. On one hand we have the so called Family Court when dealing with four sisters who hold Australian passports barely considering the wishes of the girls and ordering their brutal return to Italy. On the other hand, the High Court decides that an unacceptable ASIO assessment of a so called refugee should not be taken into consideration when deciding if that person can enter Australia. The moral of this story is clearly that if you are an Australian citizen you will be thrown out of your country but if you are a terrorist you will be welcomed with open arms.

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.