A Northland mum fighting to bring her three kids home from Algeria after claiming her husband is holding them hostage may have trouble convincing judges it is in the children's best interests for her to have custody, a lawyer who has worked on similar cases says.
Mihi Puriri, in her 30s, from Kaikohe, left her home in August last year to travel to Algeria with her husband of more than 10 years, former professional boxer Mohamed Azzaoui, 36, and their three children, because he said his father was gravely ill.
She told Radio New Zealand that her husband destroyed the family passports on arrival in the country, then held her and daughters Iman, 5, and Assiya, 2, and son Zakaria, almost 1, captive in an apartment in his hometown of Mostaganem.
Ms Puriri said she had now not seen her children for 11 days after she escaped from where she was staying following a tense stand-off between a New Zealand diplomat and police, soldiers and Algerian locals.
Foreign Minister Murray McCully has called for a review of the case, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues to help Ms Puriri.
Auckland lawyer Alex Witten-Hannah was involved in the struggle of Auckland dad Bruce Laybourn to have his son Dylan brought home from Turkey after his Turkish-born wife took Dylan to Istanbul to visit family in 2007, when he was 4 months old, but never returned.
Mr Laybourn recently went to Turkey, for the first time since Dylan's abduction, and while he spent time with his son, will return home without him while the legal process continues in Turkey.
Mr Witten-Hannah said Turkey is a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which made it easier to deal with such cases, while Algeria was not.
"With the Hague Convention not applying she will have to apply to the Algerian Court and persuade Algerian judges that the children are better off with their mother than their father," Mr Witten-Hannah said.
"The problem there, though, is that the Algerian Court system may favour the children being with their father in Algeria [rather than being returned to New Zealand with their mother]."
He said Algeria was a parochial system, which may well favour a father's rights over a mother's.
Ms Puriri's father Wiremu, a lawyer and former manager of Azzaoui, did not want to talk about the case too much when contacted yesterday because he wanted to protect his daughter. However, he does want his daughter and grandchildren home.
An MFAT spokesperson said it has been providing consular assistance to Ms Puriri and her children in Algeria since September.
Mr McCully said he requested late last week that the ministry internally review Ms Puriri's case.
"I'm aware of some criticism of aspects of the Ministry's management of this case," Mr McCully said.
"It seems to me the best way to deal with these criticisms is for the Ministry to report to me briefly on the actions taken so that we can see if any further lines of enquiry are called for."
New Zealand rugby league legend Monty Betham, who sparred with Azzaoui ahead of fighting on his undercard back in 2007, said the boxer was well respected in the field.
"I can't comment on what should happen next [in this case]. I've got kids myself and there's a right way and wrong way of doing things," Mr Betham said.