An American woman holed up in the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, since Sunday has, under coercion, signed a document giving up custody of her two young children, her mother claimed today.
Debbie Dornier appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Day Side” for the second straight day to update viewers on the gripping story she told yesterday about her daughter, Sarah Saga, a 23-year-old American who was kidnapped by her father 18 years ago and taken to the kingdom. She has been unable to leave the country since then.
As WorldNetDaily reported, Saga eventually was married off to a Saudi and bore her own children. On Sunday, the woman, who claims to have been abused by her father, stepmother and husband, sought refuge in the U.S. Consulate. She is pleading with U.S. officials to help her and her children, age 3 and 5, travel to America. Saga had been told if she leaves, however, her Saudi-born children must stay in the kingdom. The U.S. considers the children Americans, but the Saudis do not recognize dual citizenship.
According to Dornier, her daughter was visited in her room at the consulate by three Saudi foreign-affairs officials and two U.S. officials who presented her with a document granting her the freedom to leave the country providing her children remained behind.
“Basically, they talked to her and talked to her and talked to her until she signed [the paper],” Dornier said. “The paper says she will release custody of her kids, leave them behind and go.”
Dornier said the officials told Saga her children would be left with her Saudi aunt, but Dornier says the aunt would be “helpless to do anything” to prevent the kids from going back with their Saudi father. The children’s grandmother says she fears for their safety if that were to happen.
Expressing her anger with the U.S. government, Dornier said, “Our government wrote the paper that she had to sign. … She didn’t have a lawyer. She really didn’t have one person on her side. … In essence, they put a gun to her head [to get her to sign.]”
Terri Schultz, a reporter for Fox News Channel, however, said the State Department version of what happened is quite different from Dornier’s.
“The State Department told me this morning that they didn’t prepare this paper that Sarah apparently has signed, but that the Saudis prepared it,” Schultz said. She also said U.S. officials claim Saga was not “pressured” into signing the document.
Furthermore, Schultz says the government does not consider the document to be legally binding. “That means that they say Sarah can change her mind at any moment and she’s welcome to remain in the consulate with her children, and they will … continue to help her, in their words, in any way that they can.”
Dornier was shocked by Schultz’s report, saying the officials she spoke to didn’t address whether or not the document is legally binding.
A State Department officials spoke to reporters about Saga this afternoon.
“We understand that this morning Sarah decided that she would leave Saudi Arabia and that her children would remain in that country in the custody of her husband’s family,” said Edward Vazquez, a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.
“Our understanding is that they will be turned over to an aunt whom Sarah trusts,” he told reporters, according to Reuters.
Saga spoke to ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, sounding resolute about staying in the consulate.
“It’s very dangerous for me to go out of the consulate. I have no choice but to stay here until I can take my kids with me,” she said. “The kids might be taken. There is my father out there and my husband. They are both angry and I don’t know what they are capable of.”
Fox News has posted addresses of U.S. officials that can be contacted to express support for Saga in her quest for freedom for both herself and her children.
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