TAMPA, Fla. – A Michigan man appeared in Federal Court in Tampa, Florida, to be sentenced in a kidnapping that ended in June of 2019 when the defendant returned to the United States with his child.
Ali Hussein Salamey, 40, Dearborn, Michigan, was sentenced to two years in federal prison for passport fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Salamey pleaded guilty on June 7, 2022.
According to court documents, Salamey and R.S. (initials for her protection) had a child together, D.S. (initials for his protection), who was born in September 2014.
Despite court orders prohibiting either parent from obtaining a passport for D.S. or taking the child out of state without leave of the court, Salamey applied for Lebanese travel documents from the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. for his son.
To do so, Salamey submitted a fraudulent maternal consent form on which he had forged R.S.’s signature. The embassy denied the application. Salamey then attempted to obtain travel documents from the Lebanese Consulate in Michigan.
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This time, Salamey submitted a fraudulent judgment of paternity that he had altered to make it appear as if the court had awarded him (rather than R.S.) sole parental responsibility. This time, the Lebanese consulate issued a Lebanese passport for D.S.
On August 25, 2018, Salamey used the fraudulently acquired passport to take D.S. to Beirut, Lebanon. Lebanon is not a party to the Hague Convention, which obligates member countries to return children abducted abroad; nor does it have an extradition treaty with the United States.
Salamey and D.S. remained in Lebanon for the next 10 months.
Eventually, the Lebanese government agreed to help return the child to the United States. D.S. and Salamey returned to the United States on June 21, 2019, at which time the child was returned to R.S., and Salamey was arrested.
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