[KhaamaPress] The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by Afghan relatives seeking to challenge the adoption of a seven-year-old girl whose parents were killed during a US military raid in Afghanistan in 2019.
The decision leaves in place a ruling by Virginia’s highest court that favored Joshua Mast, a US Marine Corps officer and military lawyer, and his wife, who adopted the child. The Afghan relatives had asked the Supreme Court to review the case after years of legal disputes over the girl’s custody.
The girl’s parents were killed in September 2019 during a raid by US Army Rangers and Afghan forces on a rural compound. The infant was found among the rubble and taken to Bagram Air Base near Kabul for medical treatment, according to the News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
Mast and his wife later decided to adopt the child. However,
corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds...
during US President Donald Trump
 ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!...
’s first administration, the State Department worked with the Afghan government to locate her surviving relatives. The relatives were identified as a cousin and his wife, who took the girl into their care and raised her for about 18 months.
While the child was living with the Afghan couple, Mast and his wife obtained a final adoption order from a Virginia court without notifying the relatives, according to AP reporting.
In 2021, as the United States withdrew its forces from Afghanistan, Mast helped the Afghan family leave the country. After they arrived in the United States, he took custody of the girl from a refugee resettlement centre despite the relatives’ objections.
The Afghan couple subsequently challenged the adoption in court, arguing that the process had been legally flawed. Virginia’s lower courts ruled in their favour, but the state’s Supreme Court later sided with the Masts, citing a state law that generally sets a six-month deadline for challenging a final adoption order.
The Afghan relatives then appealed to the US Supreme Court. Their effort received support from a former US ambassador to Afghanistan and organizations representing military veterans and people involved in international adoptions, AP reported.
The Masts have said they acted to protect the child and provide her with a stable home. They have also disputed the Afghan couple’s claimed family relationship with the girl and argued that reopening the case after years in their care would disrupt her life.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the appeal does not constitute a new ruling on the underlying facts of the adoption. It leaves the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision in place, ending this avenue of appeal for the Afghan relatives.
# id) ?>
|
