On Thursday, the US judiciary charged the father and brother of a young New York woman with kidnapping her from Mexico, where she intended to marry her lover, and forcing her to travel to Yemen, to marry her by force to another man.
The US Department of Justice said in a statement that the 50-year-old man and his 32-year-old son, who are the victim’s father and brother, have been charged with criminal conspiracy to kidnap a person in a foreign country, a crime that carries a life sentence.
According to the indictment, the victim, an adult American citizen and university student whose identity was kept confidential, traveled in early September 2021 to Guadalajara, Mexico, to marry her fiancé, whom she had been dating for 9 years, without her family knowing that.
The indictment added that as soon as her family members learned of the matter, they traveled to Mexico and forced her by physical force, against her will, to return to the United States.
As soon as the young woman returned with her family to their city of Buffalo, New York, she was forced to leave the university, cut off the Internet, prevented her from communicating with her fiancé, and was locked in the house.
The whole story
- According to the indictment, “the victim was told that if she did not comply and consent to an arranged marriage, she would be locked up in her home and cut off from the outside world forever, and her fiancé would be killed.”
- At the end of September, she and her family were forced to fly to Yemen.
- During this trip, the victim repeatedly tried to escape, whether in the hotels where she stayed or at the airports, but all her attempts failed.
- The indictment quoted the victim as saying that when they arrived in Yemen, they went to a Houthi-controlled area where her father told her he would collect $500,000 for her arranged marriage.
- According to the prosecution, the young woman persisted in her refusal, so her father beat her and tried to strangle her.
- In the end, the marriage was not arranged, so the majority of the family members left Yemen in April 2022, leaving the young woman in an apartment in Sanaa under the authority of her brothers.
- The indictment did not mention how the US judicial authorities learned in late 2022 of this woman’s plight.
- The list referred to a non-profit organization that espoused the woman’s cause and provided the US authorities with details of her situation.
