A Taiwanese woman was to return from Iraq yesterday with her infant son after her Iraqi husband was arrested there on suspicion of having murdered her parents in Taipei in April, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said earlier in the day.
Ali Hammad Jumaah was arrested at Erbil International Airport on July 17, CIB International Criminal Affairs Division Director Kan Yen-min (甘炎民) said.
With assistance from the Australian Federal Police, the bureau contacted authorities in Iraq’s Kurdistan region to seek their help to locate the one-year-old, who was later found in the care of Jummah’s relatives in Mosul, northern Iraq, Kan said.
Arrangements were then made for CIB officials to accompany the mother, identified by her surname, Hsiao (蕭), to collect her son from them on Aug. 27, he said.
The bodies of Hsiao’s parents were found at their home in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) on May 1.
In a statement given to police that day, Hsiao said that she and her son returned from Japan, where the family lived, in March because her husband had become physically abusive.
When Jumaah arrived in Taiwan in the middle of April, Hsiao told him she wanted a divorce, prompting an argument over custody and child visitation rights, investigators said.
Hsiao was staying with her brother when the Iraqi allegedly killed her parents on the evening of April 29, police said.
He reportedly left Taiwan with the child at about 8am the next day and later sent a message via the Line messaging app to his wife, telling her that he and their son had reached Iraq.
Authorities then sought help from Japan to ask Interpol to issue a Red Notice for Jumaah.
A Red Notice is an international wanted-persons notice to locate and provisionally arrest an individual, according to Interpol’s Web site.
The bureau said that it is working closely with Iraqi authorities and hopes to extradite Jumaah to Taiwan.
Police in a Kurdish-controlled region of northern Iraq were planning to send him to Baghdad to stand trial, the bureau said.
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