French Father Reunites with Kidnapped Daughter After Year-Long Search in Morocco

Last year, Houari conducted his own investigation to find Meïssa, his then 4-year-old daughter, who was kidnapped in 2021 by her mother. "Without her, I was a corpse," he confides to the newspaper Le Parisien. The thirty-year-old finally found the minor in Morocco, after a year of searching starting from the port of Marseille. His ex-wife and the child’s mother will be tried in criminal court, on prior admission of guilt (CRPC). The couple separated in 2019 and the woman had obtained custody of their daughter.

The mother’s new partner is said to have physically abused the little girl. Houari admits to having noticed bruises on the minor’s body. After a social investigation conducted in January 2021, the judge grants him custody of the child due to these suspicions of abuse. But the Muslim mother flees to Marseille with the daughter on December 29 of the previous year, blaming the father "for not being Muslim enough to raise his daughter." "They had taken a boat to Tunisia. I thought I would never see my daughter again," he recounts.

Interpol launched the search to find the child. For his part, Houari created a Facebook page and wrote to the Élysée, which assures "that they will examine the file." One day, an Internet user writes to him, claiming to know where Meïssa is. Houari sends the address to the Tunisian authorities, who are slow to go there, until his ex-wife flees to Morocco. The same Internet user gives him another address. That’s how he "decides to go there. I told myself: at worst, they’ll kill me, there’ll be an investigation and they’ll find her."

On May 29, 2022, he takes a flight to Morocco, after having pretended to be a recruiter to his ex-wife on Facebook. The next day, he entrusts the case to the Moroccan police, who finally found the little girl, who was placed in an orphanage, he is informed. After fifteen days of arm wrestling with the Moroccan justice system, Houari finally managed to return to France with his daughter. It was June 15, 2022. "He did detective work..." says Isabelle De Mellis, his lawyer.