Congress takes up
Saudi kidnap case

The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee will hold a hearing in April concerning two Americans who have been prevented from leaving the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the last 16 years.

The decision to hold a hearing, which reportedly will include testimony from the State Department, was largely spurred on by Pat Roush, a California resident whose Saudi-born husband kidnapped their two daughters in 1986.

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"We are definitely looking at the issue," one committee official, who spoke to WND on condition of anonymity, said. "We're looking at holding a hearing on it in the spring."

The official added that the committee had been in "frequent" contact with Roush.

"I am hopeful that the truth will be revealed about how the U.S. State Department has sacrificed the lives of my daughters for the sake of this 'special relationship' with the Saudi princes – for economic, military and political gain," she told WorldNetDaily.

One State Department official said the issue of child abduction is "complex."

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"The issue is so complex, and there are international conventions governing it," the official, who remained anonymous, told WND. "It falls into the bailiwick of protecting U.S. citizen rights and lives overseas."

Roush's ex-husband and the father of their children – Khalid al-Gheshayan – defied a court order and abducted Alia and Aisha al-Gheshayan, then 7 and 3 respectively, from Roush's suburban Chicago home.

Al-Gheshayan took the girls back to Saudi Arabia, where women have substantially fewer rights, and has prevented them from leaving. Now adults, Alia, 23, has been married off to a cousin of her father. Plans are in place to marry off Aisha, 19.

Roush, who has been working tirelessly for years to bring her daughters home, has only seen them once – in 1995 – since they were abducted, but that visit lasted only minutes and was strictly supervised.

Both girls expressed a desire to return to the U.S., Roush said, but repeatedly have been denied visas and passports by the Saudi government, even though they are considered American citizens allegedly being held against their will.

Roush told WorldNetDaily that she had been contacted by the committee, which is headed by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., and that the hearings would go forward.

In the meantime, she says it is difficult to hear other U.S. leaders champion women's rights.

"[The Bush administration] is so concerned about Afghan women's rights. What about American women's rights?" she asked.

Before Burton's committee showed an interest, Roush said no other U.S. officials had taken up her cause, even though she'd been to four different State Department bureaus.

She also tried to get her U.S. senators – Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats – and other lawmakers to help. She has tried to interest the media in her story and has even tried to organize mercenary rescue missions, but nothing has worked.

"The Saudis respect power and dignity," she said, but never once has the U.S. "demonstrated power and dignity with regard to this case. I would hope that a great light will shine on the tragedy of my daughters' imprisonment inside the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and there will be an outcry for their immediate release and repatriation to the United States."

She said a number of powerful figures are slated to testify at the hearing but said she couldn't provide WND a list "until all the details have been worked out."

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