Deprived of son for years, Lilian Cheaito wins legal case against husband

After years of being deprived of all contact with her son, Liliane Cheaito, a young woman who is paralyzed and a survivor of the Beirut Port explosion in August 2020, has achieved a first legal victory.

Beirut Execution Judge Elvine Abu Diwan last week ordered the imprisonment of her husband, Hassan Houdroj, for refusing to comply with court orders allowing visitation, a judicial source told L’Orient-Le Jour.

The prosecutor of the Beirut Court of Appeals is now in charge of executing this decision.

The court order was transmitted to the relevant authorities, including the issuance of an arrest warrant at the airport and the listing of his name as a “wanted person” in other cases relating to Cheaito’s maternity and family rights.

Houdroj’s name was also shared with airport authorities and General Security, after it was established that he had left the country with their son.

He was reportedly notified on several occasions of the obligation to return the child, pursuant to a court ruling issued in May 2021.

However, he allegedly took the boy out of Lebanon in violation of the law, an act considered an outright challenge to the authority of the Lebanese judiciary and a deprivation of the mother’s natural right to see her son.

Since Aug. 4, 2020, the woman in her thirties has only seen her son Ali once, in August 2021. The child was just an infant at the time of the Beirut Port explosion.

Mediation by Jaafarite Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kabalan enabled this visit. The Jaafarite religious court granted the mother visitation rights in 2021.

But her husband’s parents refused to comply and did not return the boy to his mother, citing concerns for his health during the pandemic.