A TUG-of-love mum has won an international court battle to get her toddler back.
Anisa Khansia said she has endured a “living hell” since her estranged Turkish husband refused to hand back two-year-old Amani in July.
Now the 29-year-old, who has not seen her son since, hopes he will be home for Christmas.
Amani has been staying with his father, Mehmet Baki Sakaraglu, and extended family in the holiday resort of Marmaris in Turkey.
But now, after months of wrangling, Ms Khansia has won a Hague Convention case stating the child must be returned to her in the UK.
In anticipation she has wrapped up dozens of presents ready for her son to open on Christmas Day.
Ms Khansia, of Little Harwood, Blackburn, said: “It’s brilliant news. The thing is justice has been done.
“In court they said that Amani must be returned to me.
“All of my family is hoping it’s before Christmas, but I’m trying not to get too excited because there is still red tape.
“There’s about 100 presents already wrapped up under the Christmas tree waiting for him because he also missed his birthday on September 6.
“I just want him home as soon as possible.”
Mr Sakaraglu, who has appeared on Britain’s Got Talent under the stage name of Ali Baba, has previously accused Ms Khansia of being an unfit mother.
He had claimed he was acting in the best interests of his son and the stress of the case had made him ill.
But Ms Khansia admitted she had been jailed for six months in 2005 after buying a house with laundered drugs money. But she said she had since turned her life around and had told Mr Sakaraglu when she met him.
The couple married in 2008 after meeting on holiday a year before. They separated shortly after Amani’s birth in 2009, but Ms Khansia regularly took her son to Turkey so he could see his family.
After he was taken, Anisa launched a campaign for Amani to be returned to her, which included an awareness-raising walk and protest in Blackburn and a Facebook page supported by 1,750 people.
Ms Khansia’s lawyers used the Hague Convention treaty in a Marmaris court last week to argue that Amani should be returned to Britain after Mr Sakaraglu declined to hand the child back voluntarily.
Internationally recognised, the Hague Convention on Child Abduction regulates which country has the jurisdiction to decide where the child should live, namely the country where the child was habitually resident.
Ms Khansia, a secretary, said: “I went to court in his country and I still won. All the proof is now out that I was in the right and he was in the wrong. The law is on my side.
“But I was disappointed that Mehmet didn’t bring Amani to the court like he said he would, which just shows me he never was prepared to let me see my son.
“I would not wish this on my worst enemy. My life has been on hold since July and now I’m looking forward to getting Amani back to nursery and to normality.
“Any future custody battles will be conducted in UK courts, but I’m not even thinking about that now.”
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