Mum's fight for daughters

MELISSA Hawach is living every mother's nightmare. She hasn't seen her two young daughters since July, when her estranged husband took them on a holiday to Australia from their home in Canada, and never returned.

MELISSA Hawach is living every mother's nightmare. She hasn't seen her two young daughters since July, when her estranged husband took them on a holiday to Australia from their home in Canada, and never returned.

The girls' father, Joseph Hawach, a dual Australian-Lebanese citizen, is currently living in Beirut with five-year-old Hannah, and Cedar, 3.

However his exact whereabouts are unknown, and while he regularly contacts members of his Sydney-based family, they claim that he has refused to tell them his Beirut address because he fears for his life.

But in what is believed to be an Australian legal first, Ms Hawach, from Alberta, Canada, is suing her estranged husband's family in a bid to force them to reveal where her daughters are.

Joseph and Melissa Hawach met in Sydney in 1999. They moved to Canada in 2004 but their marriage broke down the following year.

Sole custody of the couple's daughters was awarded to Ms Hawach, but in July this year, she agreed to allow her ex-husband to take the girls on a three-week holiday to Sydney to visit his extended family. Ms Hawach has not seen her daughters since.

Yesterday, Joseph Hawach's father, brother and uncle told the NSW Supreme Court that while they had each spoken to him on several occasions since July, they did not know where he was living. "He (Joseph) told me he was taking care of the kids ... he told me, 'I love my kids'," Mr Hawach said of a recent phone conversation with his son.

Mr Hawach said he had asked his son where he was, but he replied: "I can't tell you." Joseph Hawach's uncle, Sayed Hawach, told the preliminary hearing that his nephew said that two "thugs" had visited him in Lebanon and threatened him. As a result he had hired armed guards and moved with his daughters to an undisclosed location in Beirut.

Sayed Hawach said the two men had been hired by Melissa Hawach - a claim immediately rejected yesterday by Ms Hawach's lawyer, Anthony Cheshire.

Mr Hawach's brother Pierre told the court he thought his older sibling would not return from Lebanon. "He's expressed an intention to stay," Pierre Hawach said.

The three men were summonsed to give evidence as a preliminary step towards civil action against the Hawach family. The elements of Ms Hawach's civil action against her estranged husband's family may include false imprisonment, assault and battery and international infliction of mental harm and conspiracy to harm her interests.

Outside court, a tearful Ms Hawach described her ordeal as "torture, absolute torture", and said that her unusual legal action was the only avenue through which she could be reunited with her children. "I am not going away, this will never go away until my girls are at home in bed. They are the reason I get up every day. I won't stop looking until I find them."

Joseph Hawach, 31, has been charged with two counts of abduction under Canadian law, and international warrants and an extradition order have been issued for him.