Parental neglect: Qatar court acquits American couple

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A Qatari appeals court has acquitted a US couple
charged with parental neglect leading to the death of their
adopted eight-year-old daughter.
A judge in the capital Doha on Sunday absolved
Matthew and Grace Huang, who had adopted their
daughter Gloria from an orphanage in Ghana, of any
responsibility for her death.
Late on Sunday, however, the couple released a statement
saying they had been prevented from leaving the Gulf
country and returning to the US despite the ruling, which
they said included permission to go home.
The US embassy confirmed to local website Doha
News that the US ambassador had earlier accompanied
the couple to the airport’s immigration department in an
attempt to help them leave the country.
“We just left the airport after waiting all day for the US
government to help us get out of Qatar,” the statement
said.
“We have been told we cannot leave the country and the
US government has no answers as to why. We now sit
waiting for the Qatar government to make the next
move.”
In a statement, US Secretary of State John Kerry
said he was deeply concerned about the delay to their
departure.
“The 22 long months of court proceedings following their
daughter’s tragic death have compounded the tragedy for
the Huang family, and it is time now, as the Appeals
Court stated, to let the Huangs return home,” he said.
The couple had been subject to a travel ban while the case
was ongoing.
Doha News, citing a legal source, said it was unusual for
such bans to be lifted so soon after a ruling and that the
delay was due to administrative technicalities.
The couple had been  found guilty of child endangerment by
Qatari Judge Abdullah al-Emadi in March and
sentenced to jail time by a criminal court.
The appeals court ruled the couple were not guilty and
said they were free to leave Qatar, based on witness
accounts that Gloria was “not neglected in leading a normal
life”.
The witnesses had testified that they saw Gloria eating one
day before her death, according to the presiding judge.
“This negates the charge that she was prevented from
eating, a charge that the court of first instance used as a
base for its initial ruling,” the judge said.
Gloria’s death certificate, issued by Qatar’s Supreme
Council of Health, listed the causes of death as “cachexia
and dehydration”. At the time, she had not eaten during
the four days leading up to her death, according to her
parents.
“Grace and I want to go home and be reunited with our
sons,” Matthew Huang said, describing the judicial process
in the Gulf state as “long and emotional”.
“We have been unable to grieve our daughter’s death but
we want to thank the judge for today’s decision,” he told
reporters outside the court.
The US State Department publicly commented on the
case in March, saying it had urged the government of
Qatar to ensure a fair, transparent, and expeditious trial.
“We have been concerned by indications that not all of the
evidence was being weighed by the court and that cultural
misunderstandings may have been leading to an unfair
trial,” Marie Harf, the State Department deputy
spokesperson, said at the time.
Both adoption and multiracial families are rare in
Qatar and the family’s supporters maintain authorities
misunderstood the Huangs’ situation.
The Huangs have two other adopted children, also from
Africa.