Yesterday, we reported that a Brazilian federal judge had ordered that 9-year-old Sean Goldman, who was abducted by his Brazilian mother four years ago and taken to Brazil, be released today.
Sean Goldman was to be taken today by 2 p.m. to the U.S. Consulate in Rio de Janeiro to be reunited with his father, David Goldman, and returned to the United States.
It would have been the happy and honorable ending to a four year heart rending struggle by David Goldman to get his son back from those who have been keeping him against every legal, civilized, and moral rule and norm: the family of his former wife and her second husband, a lawyer from a prominent and powerful family in Brazil.
But it was not to be.
This morning, the New York Times reports:
One day after a federal judge here ordered that a 9-year-old boy who was abducted by his Brazilian mother be returned to his American father, a Supreme Court justice stayed the order, extending a custody case that has reached the highest levels of the Obama administration and caused tension between Brazil and the United States.
Judge Rafael Pereira Pinto had ruled Monday that the child, Sean Goldman, be turned over to United States Consulate officials here by Wednesday afternoon. The consulate was to turn the child over to his father, David Goldman, who lives in New Jersey.
The boy’s father who has been in Rio to be reunited with his son, called the Supreme Court stay “heartbreaking and disgraceful,” according to the Times.
And it is heartbreaking, disgraceful and disgusting.
The United States has condemned Brazil’s handling of the case as a violation of the Hague Abduction Convention.
The New York Times:
The State Department has cited Brazil for noncompliance with the abduction treaty, saying there are about 50 unresolved cases involving children who were taken there from the United States. “Brazil needs to define itself as either a nation of laws or a nation that harbors and protects child abductors,” said Bernard Aronson, a former United States assistant secretary of state for Latin America who is assisting Mr. Goldman.
Even Brazil’s own president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said that Brazil should respect the treaty
This morning, on NBC Today’s show, talking from Rio de Janeiro, a teary-eyed and visibly upset David Goldman thanked all those who have been supportive of his plight and said that he will never give up on getting his son back.
We are with you David.
For more on this story, see here, here, here, and here
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.