The American judiciary on Thursday charged the father and brother of a New York state woman with abducting her in Mexico in order to forcibly take her to Yemen for an arranged marriage.
Khaled Abughanem, 50, and Waleed Abughanem, 32, the victim’s father and brother, have been arrested and face life imprisonment for criminal conspiracy to kidnap people in a foreign country.
In early September 2021, this adult American citizen, whose name is not named in the complaint, traveled to Mexico to marry her fiancé of nine years without notifying her family, the US Department of Justice said.
Upon notification, the victim’s family traveled to Mexico and forced her to return to the United States against her will, according to court records.
In the city of Buffalo, New York State, she was forced to drop out of university, lost access to the internet, was not allowed to contact her fiancé, and was confined at home.
“The victim has been told that if they do not comply and accept an arranged marriage, they will be locked in their home and cut off from the outside world forever and their fiancé (…) will be killed,” the ministry said Justice.
At the end of September she flies with her family to Egypt and then to Yemen. The victim then tries to flee several times in vain.
According to court documents in Cairo, the victim said his father told him, “You’re not in the West anymore, you’re in the Middle East (here) women like you are being killed.”
In Yemen, they reached an area controlled by Houthi rebels, where her father told her he would receive $500,000 after an arranged marriage that ultimately didn’t happen.
Most of the family members left Yemen in April 2022, leaving the victim with his brothers in an apartment in the Yemeni capital.
The indictment does not specify how US authorities learned of the victim’s whereabouts in late 2022.
However, the document points to a non-profit organization that is reaching out to the victim and sharing details of his situation.