"I don't want to go," were the words that eight-year-old Iruan Ergui Wu (
The police were trying to enforce a Supreme Court order in the long-running custody dispute regarding the Taiwanese-Brazilian boy's legal guardian.
The boy, the orphaned son of a Taiwanese fishing boat captain and his Brazilian wife, had been due to start a 40-hour journey to Brazil via Hong Kong and Johannesburg today, after the judge gave his uncle an ultimatum on Friday.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The custody battle between the child's uncle, Wu Huo-yen, and his Brazilian grandmother began three years ago.
The uncle, Wu Huo-yen (吳火眼), refused to hand over Iruan, but police seized the child and began carrying him away from Wu's house.
But intervention by neighbors, who scuffled with police at the scene while Iruan sat down on a sofa in the living room and began to cry, forced the police to retreat.
Although police officers said they would enforce the law no matter what, they were clearly unprepared for the angry mob of residents and swarm of journalists that surrounded them as they tried to get away with the child. To mollify the crowd, the police decided to leave Iruan at a neighbor's residence next to Wu's to comfort the boy while they awaited further instructions.
Yesterday was the deadline by which Iruan's uncle was ordered by the court to hand over the boy to Brazil Business Center Director Paulo Pinto, who is representing Iruan's grandmother, Rosa Ergui.
But the Taiwanese-Brazilian boy did not catch his flight.
Kaohsiung District Court Judge Liao Cheng-hsiung (
But, adding to the farce, the judge and his superior, Huang Guo-chuan (黃國川), negotiated with Wu's wife, Lee Su-hua (李素華), to let Iruan stay in Kaohsiung last night in police custody.
Pinto said in response that Iruan should have been in his custody. At press time, Pinto was waiting to learn where Iruan would be kept so that he could stay with him overnight before accompanying him to Kaohsiung International Airport.
Liao and Pinto had arrived at the Wu residence at 10am last Friday to carry out the court order stating that custody of Iruan belongs to Ergui and that the boy should be escorted back to his home in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
However, Iruan's uncle insisted that the legal process was not complete and said that Liao had no right to take Iruan away.
According to the district court, an official notice was delivered to Wu in person by police officers on Jan. 5. In accordance with the Civil Code (
Wu Huo-yen, however, insisted that he never signed any official notice.
Liao immediately handed another official notice to Wu Huo-yen at the scene and asked him to hand the boy over to the district court at 11am yesterday. Again, Wu Huo-yen and Iruan did not show up on time.
In the meantime, Lin Hsien-tung (林憲同), a lawyer who was hired by Wu on Sunday night, filed a request to keep Iruan in Taiwan until April.
The request was immediately rejected. In addition, Liao decided to issue an arrest warrant for Wu Huo-yen.
When approached by reporters, Pinto, however, said that the entire process was like a joke to him.
"They [the Wus] don't have to do this. We have prepared five visas for the Wu family members as well as Iruan's teacher. They can fly to Brazil with us as soon as they have their photos attached to these visas," he said.
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