ROANOKE, VA, June 22, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ — A mother who has not held her 5-year-old daughter in more than a year is asking a federal court to bring the child home. According to a petition filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, the girl was taken out of Turkey without her mother’s permission, in violation of a court order, by her father, Saeed Abedini, the pastor whose 2012 imprisonment in Iran drew international attention and whose 2016 release came in a prisoner exchange with the United States.
The petition, filed on behalf of the mother, Niloofar Ilbaki Aragh, seeks the girl’s return to Turkey under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. The case is brought under the International Child Abduction Remedies Act, the federal law that implements the treaty, to which both Turkey and the United States are parties.
The treaty exists for one purpose: to return children who have been wrongfully taken across borders.
The U.S. Marshals Service served the petition on Abedini on Thursday. In connection with the court’s order, travel documents were surrendered, and Abedini is scheduled to appear before a federal judge on Monday.
According to the petition, the child was born in Turkey in 2021 and lived there with her mother, her primary caregiver, from birth.
The filing alleges that in January 2025 the father removed the girl from the country without the mother’s consent and in circumvention of a Turkish court order that barred him from leaving Turkey.
The petition asks the court to order the child’s prompt return to Turkey and to bar her further removal or concealment while the case is pending.
“This is exactly what the Hague Convention was built to address,” said Devon Slovensky, the Roanoke family law attorney representing the mother. “A child’s home is where her life is rooted. This little girl’s home, her mother, and her whole world were in Turkey. We are asking the court to act quickly, as the treaty directs, and to send her home.”
The petition states that the mother reported the child missing to Turkish police the day after the father failed to return her, filed a Hague application with Turkish authorities within weeks, and has pursued the child’s return through the U.S. State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues.
It further alleges that the father did not establish a permanent home or enroll the child in school until after he was notified of the international abduction proceedings.
Abedini pleaded guilty to domestic battery in Idaho, according to court records. His marriage to his former wife, who has publicly described years of abuse, ended in divorce in 2017. The petition further cites a 2016 emergency protection order and additional incidents documented in Idaho court records and in reporting by The Washington Post and Religion News Service.
The matter is Niloofar Ilbaki Aragh v. Saeed Abedini, Civil Action No. 6:26-cv-00071, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Lynchburg Division.
Fore more information contact: https://slovenskylaw.com/devon-slovensky
About Slovensky Divorce & Family Law
Slovensky Divorce & Family Law (Slovensky Law PLLC) is a Roanoke, Virginia firm representing families in high-stakes custody, parental abduction, and high-asset divorce. Founder Devon Slovensky is a Master Advocate trained through the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst®, and an American Inns of Court Pegasus Scholar who studied with the Inns of Court in London. She serves on the board of the Twelve Foundation, whose residential home, The Grove on Patterson, received the 2025 Governor’s Volunteerism and Community Service Award for Outstanding Community.
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