It had been a 12-hour flight from New York’s JFK to the Queen Alia Airport. The Royal Jordanian red-eye flight was crammed with chain-smoking businessmen from all over the Middle East, but Nesime Dokur hadn’t closed her eyes, not even briefly. She had brought along some "religious books" but was too anxious about the children to read them.

Certainly, she believed, the king would honor his pledge, made privately to her, that the children would be permitted to return to America. Of course there was the formality of a custody hearing, but Dokur had been assured that the Sha’aria would honor her right to raise the children how and where she saw fit.

It was, she had been told, a basic presumption among Islamic courts that a mother’s rights --and by association the rights of the maternal family --were paramount in such cases.  Islamic law gives the maternal grandmother priority in custody cases, followed by the paternal grandmother, the maternal aunt, and the paternal aunt.  Dokur had taken the precaution of having her own mother -- Sami and Lisa’s grandmother -- named along with her as guardians of the children before she left the United States.

But the king was not in Jordan. He was in America, hammering out the final details of the historic accord between Jordan and Israel, and trying to expedite a package that would forgive $700 million in debt that his kingdom owed to the United States.

In Hussein’s absence, Yahyah Abequa was turning up the heat on his campaign to keep the children in Jordan. There were rallies and protests, and there were signs that some in parliament --particularly those already at odds with the king for what they perceived as his un-Islamic tilt toward the west -- were prepared to support the general in his bid. The general had support among some Islamic scholars, and was, it was rumored, making inroads with the courts.

Even if Dokur won a battle in the religious court, there was still a danger that the children's return to the United States could be delayed indefinitely if Abequa's family appealed.  Islamic law permits such cases to be appealed through two higher courts, Dokur had been warned, if that should happen, it would have been unlikely that the children would have been permitted to leave Jordan while the appeals were pending.

There was also a risk that Abequa or his family could complicate the case by demanding visitation rights, a tactic which has been used in Middle Eastern courts  to force a foreign guardian or parent to remain in an Islamic country, Dokur had been told. 

Certainly, she had the support of her own government. That was obvious when she stepped from the plane, still toting the two Barney dolls she had bought for Lisa and Sami, and was greeted by U.S. Consul Raymond Clora. Clora was bearing a letter from Ambassador Wesley Egan in which he expressed his sympathies and invited the group to a meeting the next morning at the U.S. Embassy to discuss what steps were to be taken next.

U.S. Embassy in Amman (AP)

"In response to the tragic events that have brought you to Jordan," Egan wrote, "I want you to know that we will continue our efforts to reunite you with your niece and nephew, and will continue to press for the extradition of Mohammed Abequa to the United States for trial on charges of murder."

It was all so terribly complicated, Dokur thought. Court battles. Diplomatic battles. Political battles. And here she was in the middle of it, a soft-spoken medical technician from the Middle Eastern neighborhood in South Paterson.  Was she up to it?

She had to be, she thought as she stroked the Barney dolls. The children’s futures were at stake.