Afghan couple accuses US Marine of abducting baby

WASHINGTON — The younger Afghan couple raced to the airport in Kabul, clutching their baby woman shut amid the chaotic withdrawal of American troops final yr.

The baby had been rescued two years earlier from the rubble of a U.S. Special Forces raid that killed her dad and mom and 5 siblings. After months in a U.S. navy hospital, she had gone to reside along with her cousin and his spouse, this newlywed couple. Now, the household was certain for the United States for additional medical remedy, with the help of U.S. Marine Corps legal professional Joshua Mast.

When the exhausted Afghans arrived on the airport in Washington D.C. in late August 2021, Mast pulled them out of the worldwide arrivals line and led them to an inspecting officer, in response to a lawsuit they filed final month. They had been shocked when Mast offered an Afghan passport for the kid, the couple mentioned. But it was the final identify printed on the doc that stopped them chilly: Mast.

They didn’t comprehend it, however they might quickly lose their baby.

This is a narrative about how one U.S. Marine grew to become fiercely decided to carry residence an Afghan battle orphan, and praised it as an act of Christian religion to avoid wasting her. Letters, emails and paperwork submitted in federal filings present that he used his standing within the U.S. Armed Forces, appealed to high-ranking Trump administration officers and turned to small-town courts to undertake the baby, unbeknownst to the Afghan couple elevating her 7,000 miles away.

The little woman, now 3 ½ years outdated, is on the middle of a high-stakes tangle of not less than 4 courtroom circumstances. The Afghan couple, determined to get her again, has sued Joshua and his spouse Stephanie Mast. But the Masts insist they’re her authorized dad and mom and “acted admirably” to guard her. They’ve requested a federal decide to dismiss the lawsuit.

The ordeal has drawn within the U.S. departments of Defense, Justice and State, which have argued that the try to spirit away a citizen of one other nation may considerably hurt navy and international relations. It has additionally meant {that a} baby who survived a violent raid, was hospitalized for months and escaped the autumn of Afghanistan has needed to break up her quick life between two households, each of which now declare her.

Five days after the Afghans arrived within the U.S., they are saying Mast – custody papers in hand – took her away.

The Afghan lady collapsed onto the ground and pleaded with the Marine to offer her baby again. Her husband mentioned Mast had known as him “brother” for months; so he begged him to behave like one, with compassion. Instead, the Afghan household claims in courtroom papers, Mast shoved the person and stomped his foot.

That was greater than a yr in the past. The Afghan couple hasn’t seen her since.

“After they took her, our tears never stop,” the girl informed The Associated Press. “Right now, we are just dead bodies. Our hearts are broken. We have no plans for a future without her. Food has no taste and sleep gives us no rest.”

The story of the baby unfolds in lots of of pages of authorized filings and paperwork obtained underneath the Freedom of Information Act, in addition to interviews with these concerned, pieced collectively in an AP investigation.

In a federal lawsuit filed in September, the Afghan household accuses the Masts of false imprisonment, conspiracy, fraud and assault. The household has requested the courtroom to protect their id out of issues for his or her family again in Afghanistan, and so they communicated with AP on the situation of remaining nameless.

The Masts name the Afghan household’s claims “outrageous, unmerited attacks” on their integrity. They argue in court filings that they’ve labored “to protect the child from physical, mental or emotional harm.” They say the Afghan couple are “not her lawful parents,” and Mast’s legal professional forged doubt on whether or not the Afghans had been even associated to the baby.

“Joshua and Stephanie Mast have done nothing but ensure she receives the medical care she requires, at great personal expense and sacrifice, and provide her a loving home,” wrote the Masts’ attorneys.

The baby’s id has been stored non-public, listed solely as Baby L or Baby Doe. The Afghan couple had given the baby an Afghan identify; the Masts gave her an American one.

Originally from Florida, Joshua Mast married his spouse Stephanie and attended Liberty University, an evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia. He graduated in 2008, and received his regulation diploma there in 2014.

In 2019, they had been residing with their sons in Palmyra, a small rural Virginia city, when Joshua Mast was despatched on a brief task to Afghanistan. Mast, then a captain within the U.S. Marine Corps, was a navy lawyer for the federal Center for Law and Military Operations. The U.S. Marines declined to remark publicly, together with different federal officers.

That September in 2019 was one of the deadliest months of the complete U.S. occupation in Afghanistan, with greater than 110 civilians killed within the first week alone.

On Sept. 6, 2019, the U.S. attacked a distant compound.

No particulars about this occasion are publicly obtainable, however in court documents Mast claims that categorised stories present the U.S. authorities “sent helicopters full of special operators to capture or kill” a international fighter. Mast mentioned that moderately than give up, a person detonated a suicide vest; 5 of his six kids within the room had been killed, and their mom was shot to demise whereas resisting arrest.

Sehla Ashai and Maya Eckstein, attorneys for the Afghan couple, dispute Mast’s account. They say the baby’s dad and mom had been truly farmers, unaffiliated with any terrorist group. And they described the occasion as a tragedy that left two harmless civilians and 5 of their kids lifeless.

Both sides agree that when the mud settled, U.S. troops pulled the badly injured toddler from the rubble. The baby had a fractured cranium, damaged leg and critical burns.

She was about 2 months outdated.

Mast known as the baby a “victim of terrorism.” His legal professional mentioned she “miraculously survived.”

The baby was rushed to a navy hospital, the place she was positioned within the care of the Defense Department.

The International Committee of the Red Cross informed AP that they started trying to find her household with the Afghan authorities, usually a plodding course of in rural components of the nation the place record-keeping is scant. At first, they didn’t even know the baby’s identify.

Meanwhile, Mast mentioned, he was “aggressively” advocating to get her to the U.S. Over a number of months, he wrote to then-Vice President Mike Pence’s workplace, in response to exhibits filed in courtroom. He mentioned his colleagues within the navy tried to speak to President Donald Trump concerning the baby throughout a Thanksgiving go to to Bagram Airfield. Mast additionally mentioned he made 4 requests over two weeks to then-White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, asking for assist to medically evacuate the baby “to be treated in a safe environment.”

The Masts had been represented by Joshua’s brother Richard Mast, an legal professional with the conservative Christian authorized group Liberty Counsel, which says it isn’t concerned on this case. None of the Masts responded to repeated requests for interviews.

In emails to navy officers, Mast alleged that Pence informed the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to “make every effort” to get her to the United States. Mast signed his emails with a Bible verse: “‘Live for an Audience of one, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.”

Pence’s spokesman, Marc Short, didn’t reply to requests for remark.

The U.S. Embassy by no means heard from Pence’s workplace, mentioned a Department of State official, who requested anonymity as a result of they didn’t have permission to talk publicly concerning the scenario. But they did start getting extremely uncommon inquiries concerning the risk of sending the baby to the U.S. The diplomats had been rattled by the suggestion that the U.S. may simply take her away; they believed the baby belonged to Afghanistan.

“I was aware that it may not be smooth sailing ahead, but that just made me more determined to do the right thing,” the State Department official mentioned.

About six weeks after the baby was rescued, the U.S. Embassy known as for a gathering, attended by representatives of the Red Cross, the Afghan authorities and the American navy, together with Mast. The State Department wished to verify everybody understood its place: Under worldwide humanitarian regulation, the U.S. was obliged to do the whole lot potential to reunite the baby along with her subsequent of kin.

At the assembly, Mast requested about adoption, the State Department official mentioned. Attendees from Afghanistan’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs defined that by Afghan regulation and customized, they needed to place the baby along with her organic household. If that didn’t work, the Afghan Children’s Court would decide a correct guardian.

The American idea of adoption doesn’t even exist in Afghanistan. Under Islamic regulation, a toddler’s bloodline can’t be severed and their heritage is sacred. Instead of adoption, a guardianship system known as kafala permits Muslims to soak up orphans and lift them as household, with out relinquishing the kid’s identify or bloodline.

American adoptions from Afghanistan are uncommon and solely potential for Muslim-American households of Afghan descent. The State Department acknowledges 14 American adoptions from Afghanistan over the previous decade, none previously two years.

Yet two days after the embassy assembly, a letter was despatched to U.S. officers in Kabul from Kimberley Motley, a near-celebrity American legal professional in Afghanistan, the State Department official mentioned. Motley wrote that she was representing an unnamed involved American citizen who wished to undertake this baby. Motley declined to be interviewed by the AP.

Mast additionally continued his appeals to American politicians. The U.S. Embassy started listening to from Congressional staffers concerning the baby, and diplomats met with a navy common, the official mentioned.

The common in flip put a “gag order” on navy personnel concerning the baby and mentioned “no one was to advocate on her behalf,” Mast wrote in a legal filing.

But he wasn’t prepared to surrender.

The Masts looked for an answer midway around the globe — in rural Fluvanna County, Virginia, the place they lived.

They petitioned the native Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, describing the baby as a “stateless minor recovered off the battlefield.” In early November 2019, a decide granted them authorized custody. The identify of this decide will not be publicly obtainable as a result of juvenile data are sealed in Virginia.

A number of days later, a certificates of international delivery listed Joshua and Stephanie Mast as dad and mom.

The custody order was primarily based on the Masts’ assertion that the Afghan authorities — particularly now-deposed President Ashraf Ghani — meant to waive jurisdiction over the kid “in a matter of days,” in response to a hearing transcript. The waiver by no means arrived.

In an e-mail to AP, Ghani’s former deputy chief of workers Suhrob Ahmad mentioned there’s “no record of this alleged statement of waiver of Afghan jurisdiction.” Ahmad mentioned he and the pinnacle of the Administrative Office of the President don’t bear in mind any such request going by the courtroom system as required.

The U.S. Embassy heard that Mast was granted custody. Military attorneys assured them that the Marine was simply getting ready in case Afghanistan waived jurisdiction, however wouldn’t intervene with the seek for the baby’s household, in response to the State Department official.

Yet all alongside they deliberate to undertake the baby, in response to data obtained from the state of Virginia underneath a Freedom of Information Act request. Richard Mast wrote the Attorney General’s workplace in November 2019 that the Masts “will file for adoption as soon as statutorily possible.”

In the meantime, Joshua Mast enrolled the baby within the Defense Department well being care system, made an appointment at a U.S. International Adoption Clinic and requested to have her evacuated.

Then got here a shock: The Red Cross mentioned they’d discovered her household. She was about 5 months outdated.

In late 2019, Afghan officers informed the U.S. Embassy that the baby’s paternal uncle had been recognized, and he determined his son and daughter-in-law had been finest suited to take her, in response to courtroom data. They had been younger, educated newlyweds with no kids but of their very own, and lived in a metropolis with entry to hospitals.

The younger man labored in a medical workplace and ran a co-ed faculty, which is uncommon in Afghanistan. His spouse graduated from highschool on the prime of her class, and is fluent in three languages, together with English. They had married for love, not like many Afghans in organized marriages.

Mast expressed doubts concerning the newly-found uncle, describing him in courtroom data as “an anonymous person of unknown nationality” and claiming that turning the baby over to him was “inherently dangerous.” He requested the Red Cross to place him in contact, however they refused.

In emails to a U.S. navy workplace requesting evacuation, Mast alleged that he learn greater than 150 pages of categorised paperwork, and concluded the kid was a “stateless minor.” Mast believed she was the daughter of transient terrorists who’re residents of no nation, his legal professional mentioned. He additionally speculated that if reunited along with her household, she could possibly be made a toddler soldier or a suicide bomber, bought into intercourse trafficking, hit in a U.S. navy strike, or stoned for being a lady.

But Afghanistan didn’t waver: the kid was a citizen of their nation.

Mast’s legal professional despatched the U.S. Embassy a “cease and desist” letter warning them to not hand the baby over, in response to the State Department official. But on February 26, 2020, the Masts discovered that the U.S. was getting ready to place the baby, now almost 8 months outdated, on a airplane early the next morning to hitch her household in one other Afghan metropolis.

The Masts, represented by Richard Mast, sued the secretaries of Defense and State in a federal courtroom in Virginia, asking for an emergency restraining order to cease them. The Masts claimed they had been the baby’s “lawful permanent legal guardians.”

Within hours, 4 federal attorneys — two from the Justice Department and two from the U.S. Attorney’s Office — had been on the telephone, and Richard Mast was in Federal Judge Norman Moon’s workplace.

Richard Mast mentioned the baby shouldn’t be “condemned to suffer.” He complained that the Afghan authorities had not carried out DNA testing to verify the household they discovered was really associated to the kid.

But the Justice Department attorneys mentioned that they had no proper to mandate how the Afghan authorities vets the household, and that the Red Cross — which has reunited family in battle zones for greater than a century — had confirmed it was executed correctly. Further, the federal authorities’s attorneys described the Masts’ custody paperwork from state courtroom as “unlawful,” “deeply flawed and incorrect,” and “issued on a false premise that has never happened” — that Afghanistan would waive jurisdiction.

Judge Moon requested Richard Mast: “Your client is not asking to adopt the child?”

“No sir,” Mast responded. “He wants to get her medical treatment in the United States.”

Justice Department attorneys argued that the United States should meet its worldwide obligations. Attorney Alexander Haas put it merely: Taking one other nation’s citizen to the United States “would have potentially profound implications on our military and foreign affairs interests.”

Judge Moon dominated in opposition to the Masts, and the baby stayed in Afghanistan.

The subsequent day, she was united along with her organic household. The Afghan couple wept with pleasure.

“We didn’t think she would come back to her family alive,” mentioned the younger Afghan man. “It was the best day of our lives. After a long time, she had a chance to have a family again.”

AN EXTRA MEASURE OF TENDERNESS

As the months handed in her new residence in Afghanistan, the woman cherished getting henna painted on her fingers and dressing up in new garments, the Afghan couple mentioned. She at all times wished to do her new mom’s make-up, or brush her hair.

“She knew about Allah, about clothes, about the names of food,” the girl wrote.

The couple cared for her as if she was their very own daughter, however with an additional measure of tenderness as a result of of the unimaginable tragedy she’d already suffered.

“We never wanted her to feel she couldn’t have something she wanted,” mentioned the younger man.

Meanwhile, Mast continued to fret that the kid was “in an objectively dangerous situation,” Richard Mast wrote in courtroom paperwork. The Masts requested Kimberley Motley, the legal professional, to trace down the household, saying he wished to get the kid medical remedy within the U.S, Motley mentioned in courtroom data.

Motley contacted the Afghan household in March 2020, a few week after the baby was positioned in her new residence. Motley is known as as a defendant of their lawsuit, however her legal professional, Michael Hoernlein, informed AP the claims in opposition to her are “meritless.” In court documents, Motley’s attorneys describe her position as skilled and above-board, and requested that the claims in opposition to her be dismissed.

Motley had initially gone to Afghanistan in 2008 underneath an American-funded initiative to coach native attorneys. She stayed, largely representing foreigners charged with crimes. She took on high-profile human rights circumstances, gave a TED Talk and wrote a guide.

Over the course of a yr, Motley known as for updates concerning the baby and infrequently requested for photographs. In July, across the baby’s first birthday, the couple despatched Motley a snapshot of the kid in swim trunks, smiling and splashing in a wading pool.

At the identical time, the Masts’ adoption case was nonetheless winding by the courtroom system in Fluvanna County, Virginia. In December 2020, the state courtroom granted the Masts a ultimate adoption order primarily based on the discovering that the kid “remains up to this point in time an orphaned, undocumented, stateless minor,” in response to a federal lawsuit. Fluvanna County Circuit Court Presiding Judge Richard E. Moore didn’t reply to repeated requests for readability on how the circumstances progressed.

International adoption attorneys had been baffled.

“If you have relatives there who are saying, ‘no, no, no, we want our daughter, we want our little girl,’ it’s over,” mentioned Irene Steffas, an adoption and immigration legal professional. “There is no way the U.S. is going to get into a match with another country when it comes to a child that’s a citizen of that country.”

Karen Law, a Virginia legal professional who makes a speciality of worldwide adoption, mentioned state regulation requires an accredited company to go to 3 times over six months and compile a report earlier than an adoption could be finalized. The baby have to be current for the visits — however this baby was hundreds of miles away.

On July 10, 2021, across the baby’s second birthday, Motley facilitated the primary telephone name between the Afghan couple and Joshua Mast, with the help translator Ahmad Osmani, a Baptist pastor of Afghan descent. Mast informed the Afghan couple that except they despatched the kid to the United States for medical care, she may “be blind, brain damaged, and/or permanently physically disabled.”

But the Afghan man now elevating her, who had labored within the medical discipline, didn’t suppose her burn scars, a leg damage and mysterious allergic reactions amounted to a life-altering situation in the way in which Mast described. The couple declined sending the baby to the United States.

The lady was pregnant, and anxious concerning the threat of such a protracted flight. They mentioned they requested Mast: Could they take the baby to Pakistan or India for remedy as an alternative?

The reply was no, their lawsuit says. The conversations continued for months. Osmani, the translator, vouched for the Masts and described them as sort and reliable, in response to the lawsuit, which names him as a defendant.

Osmani didn’t reply to requests for remark. He requested a federal decide to throw out the lawsuit, and mentioned he by no means deceived anybody. He was solely a “mere translator.”

His attorneys wrote: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

“LIVING IN A DARK JAIL”

In late summer time 2021, the Taliban seized energy in Afghanistan. Mast mentioned he contacted the household to carry the baby to the U.S. “before the country collapsed.” He mentioned he was “extremely concerned that they may not get another chance.” The couple agreed.

Mast utilized for particular visas for the Afghan household and for family of Osmani, the translator, in response to courtroom data. They characterised the Afghan couple as an escort for a “U.S. military dependent” — the baby.

In an e-mail to U.S. officers filed in courtroom, Mast wrote that Osmani was “very instrumental to helping a U.S. Marine…adopt an Afghan child.”

Soon, the Afghan household started their days-long journey to the U.S. Joshua Mast informed them to say he was their lawyer.

“If anyone asks to talk about your documents, show them this text: I am Major Joshua Mast, USMC. I am a Judge Advocate…” Mast texted them detailed instructions for the best way to cope with U.S. authorities, their lawsuit says.

When the household arrived in Germany for a stopover, Joshua Mast and his spouse greeted them on the air drive base. It was the primary time that they had met in individual.

In Germany, the Masts visited the Afghan household’s room 3 times to attempt to get the baby to journey individually with them, “insisting that it would be easier for the toddler to enter the United States that way,” the Afghan couple recalled of their lawsuit. They refused to let the woman out of their sight.

When the Afghans lastly landed within the United States, they started explaining that the kid was too younger to have Afghan paperwork. That’s after they declare Joshua Mast pulled out an Afghan passport.

Inside was the identical picture of the kid within the wading pool, however altered to vary the background, add a shirt and easy her hair. Mast informed the Afghans to “keep quiet” about having his identify on her passport, their lawsuit alleges, so it might be simpler to get medical care.

The Afghan couple requested to be taken to Fort Pickett Army National Guard base, a location specified by Mast, in response to the lawsuit. Thousands of Afghan refugees had been briefly housed there.

Soon after, they mentioned, troopers got here to their room and informed them they had been transferring. A wierd lady sat within the again of the van subsequent to a automotive seat, in response to courtroom data, and the baby fussed as she buckled her in.

The van pulled as much as a constructing they didn’t acknowledge, the place a girl who known as herself a social employee mentioned the Masts had been the woman’s authorized guardians. Confused and frightened, the kid cried and the couple begged.

But it did no good. Mast took the baby to his automotive, the place his spouse was ready, the lawsuit says.

In their closely redacted response to the lawsuit, the Masts acknowledge they “took custody” of the kid; they mentioned their adoption order was legitimate and so they did nothing unsuitable.

Richard Mast can be named as a defendant within the Afghan household’s lawsuit. He wrote in legal documents that his brother’s adoption of the kid was “selfless;” it saved each the kid, and the Afghan household combating to get her again, “from the evils of life under the Taliban.”

The Afghan couple believed that their baby was stolen, and so they instantly sought assist at Fort Pickett to get her again.

“But the playing field was not level,” their legal professional, Ashai, informed the AP. The couple “were forced to navigate a complex and confusing system in a foreign country in which they had just arrived, after having survived the greatest trauma of their lives.”

Meanwhile, the couple says in courtroom paperwork, Osmani warned them to not contact a lawyer or the authorities, and prompt that Mast would possibly give them the baby again in the event that they dealt instantly with him.

And in order that they tried to take care of contact with Mast. They had been additionally scared of him. If he may abduct their baby in broad daylight, they anxious he would possibly damage them too, their attorneys wrote in authorized filings.

The Afghan lady plunged right into a deep despair and, regardless of being 9 months pregnant, stopped consuming and ingesting. She couldn’t sleep. Her husband was afraid to go away her alone.

“Since we have come to America, we have not felt happiness for even one day,” the Afghan man informed the AP. “We feel like we are living in a dark jail.”

His spouse gave delivery to a lady on October 1, 2021. The younger mom’s grief grew to become overwhelming. A month later, she thought-about suicide and was hospitalized.

Soon the couple sought authorized assist; by December 2021, the Afghan couple had requested the Fluvanna decide to reverse the adoption. But these proceedings, nearly one yr in, have been opaque and sluggish.

On Feb. 27, 2022, when the Afghan baby was 2 ½ years outdated, the Masts traveled to the Mennonite Christian Assembly in Fredericksburg, Ohio, to share their pleasure throughout a particular church service. In a video promoting the occasion known as “Walking in Faith,” the pastor apologized to congregants that it might not be on-line, as a result of the Marine would share “very confidential, classified information.”

“Unforeseen events gave the couple an unexpected opportunity to stand up to protect innocent life,” learn this system flyer. “Come hear how God’s mighty hand allowed for a remarkable deliverance.”

Pastor John Risner informed the AP that the Masts had requested the service be confidential, and he didn’t need to betray their belief by disclosing any particulars.

All he would say is that their story is “amazing.”

The destiny of the Afghan baby is now being debated in secret proceedings in a locked courtroom within the village of Palmyra, Virginia, residence to about 100 folks.

Earlier this month, Joshua Mast arrived on the Fluvanna County courthouse alongside together with his spouse and his brother Richard. Mast was wearing his starched Marine uniform, holding his white and gold hat in his hand. The listening to stretched on for roughly eight hours.

The proceedings have been fully shielded from public view, mandated by presiding Judge Moore. The AP was not allowed contained in the courtroom. Court clerk Tristana Treadway refused to offer even the docket quantity, saying she may “neither confirm nor deny” the case existed in any respect.

More than a dozen attorneys streamed into the courthouse, carting containers of proof, and every mentioned they had been forbidden from talking.

Mast stays an energetic responsibility Marine, and has since been promoted to main. He now lives together with his household in North Carolina. The Afghan toddler has been with them for greater than a yr.

In Texas, the Afghan couple continues to grieve the loss of the kid. The baby the girl gave delivery to shortly after arriving within the U.S. simply turned 1. The younger mom had deliberate to boost the ladies as sisters.

“There is nothing to celebrate without her. There is no happiness here,” the Afghan man mentioned. “We are counting the moments and days until she will come home.”

Retired Associated Press Afghanistan and Pakistan Bureau Chief Kathy Gannon, AP researcher Rhonda Shafner and AP Pentagon reporter Lolita Baldor contributed to this report.