The plaintiffs, Saleem Mohammad Aslam, 35, and Kalsum Mohammad Aslam, 38, filed the suit through Messrs Haziq A Subhi & Co at the High Court here on May 10, naming his former wife Faith Kimberly Hepburn @ Ashalina Hepburn Abdullah as the defendant.
Also named as defendants were the immigration department director-general, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) immigration director, the immigration department (JIM), an immigration officer, the government and lawyer Jennifer Jayalitha Chandran.
Based on the statement of claims, the plaintiffs alleged that the director-general, the director and the department of immigration had committed negligence.
The plaintiffs claimed that the children had been kidnapped by Hepburn, who fled Malaysia without any justification and valid official documents. They claimed the information on the documents were falsified.
The son and daughter are 10 years old and eight years old, respectively.
The plaintiffs claimed that after the children disappeared from under their care, they had lodged two police reports to inform the first to the third defendants as they feared the children would be taken out of the country by Hepburn and her lover Atabek Yechshanov, a Kazakh citizen.
“Subsequent failure and negligence can be seen when the first to third defendants and the fourth defendant (the immigration officer) allowed the children to leave the country using New Zealand passports without detailed inspection.
“The Malaysian government, as the fifth defendant, has failed, refused or was negligent in allowing the incident to occur and negligence to be committed by the first to fourth defendants,” the statement of claim stated.
In addition, the plaintiffs alleged that Jennifer Jayalitha had acted negligently when she failed to obtain detailed information from Hepburn when the latter applied for renunciation of citizenship. At the time, Hepburn and Saleem were in the midst of shariah court proceedings that began in 2016.
The plaintiffs claimed that Hepburn had falsified her former husband’s signature in the application form and Jennifer Jayalitha, who was acting as her lawyer, failed to check the authenticity of the signature.
They claimed that as a result of the negligence and failure of all the defendants, the plaintiffs and their families had faced various difficulties, incurred losses, and wasted time, energy and financial resources to settle custody claims in a New Zealand court.
The plaintiffs are seeking RM25 million in general damages from the first to fifth defendants, in addition to general damages from the sixth and seventh defendants, to be assessed by the court.
They are also seeking special damages amounting to RM404,265.39 from all defendants, punitive damages and other relief deemed suitable by the court.
Checks on the court system found that the case had been fixed for case management before High Court deputy registrar R Pushparasi on June 22.