With thanks: Simone, Adrian and Michelle
After winning a battle with a Saudi Prince for custody of their daughter, a French-Jewish woman, Candice Cohen Ahnine, has fallen to her death from her fourth floor Paris apartment in mysterious circumstances.
Was it an accident or a murder? Le Parisien reports that questions surround the death of Candice Cohen Ahnine, 35. For four years she had engaged in a custody battle for her daughter, 11, kidnapped by the child's father, Prince Sattam of the royal house of Saud. On the day Candice died it seems that the young woman was trying to escape 'something dangerous' by climbing on to the balcony next door. Her relatives report that she felt 'threatened' recently.
An autopsy will be carried out next week and her neighbours interviewed. Her lawyer is said to be devastated by news of Candice Cohen Ahnine's death. Suicide seems unlikely: her mood was upbeat and elated as she planned her trip to Saudi Arabia in hopes of being reunited with her daughter.
Point of No Return readers will be fascinated by the Jewish angle to this story. Apart from the fact that Candice's origins are North African Sephardi, it is not known what her family thought of their daughter's love entanglement with a Saudi prince.
In this video interview recorded in February 2012 (in French), Candice, who wrote a book called 'Rendez-moi ma fille', smiles as she recalls falling in love with the prince, whom she met in a London nightclub."We were the same age, two spoilt kids," she remembers. Then things turned sour: she talks of her imprisonment in Prince Sattam's palace in Riyadh for months on end. On one occasion a female member of the household insulted her, calling her a dirty Jew. She tells how the prince's family tried to get her to sign her death warrant - stating that she was a Muslim who had converted to Judaism. Apostasy is a crime punishable by death. She did not agree to sign.
The Daily Telegraph reported in January 2012:
The Paris criminal court ordered Prince Sattam al-Saud from the kingdom’s founding royal family, to hand over custody of his daughter Aya to her French mother, Candice Cohen-Ahnine, and provide child support of €10,000 (£8,300) a month.
For the past three-and-a-half years, the prince has kept Aya in a Riyadh palace despite efforts by the French foreign ministry and President Nicolas Sarkozy's office to resolve the issue.
But the French court ruling appears to have had no effect on the prince. “What do I care of Sarkozy?” he is cited as telling Nouvel Observateur magazine. “If need be, I’ll go like [Osama] bin Laden and hide in the mountains with Aya.”
Miss Cohen-Ahnin, 34, and the prince met in London 14 years ago at Brown’s nightclub and their daughter was born in November 2001.
Their relationship continued until 2006 when he allegedly announced that he was obliged to marry a cousin, but that she could be a second wife. She refused and they separated.
Miss Cohen-Ahnine claimed that her daughter was taken from her during a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2008 and that she was held in the prince’s palace where she had only fleeting meetings with her daughter.
She said she managed to leave when a maid left her door open and she sought refuge in the French embassy.
Miss Cohen-Ahnin was eventually spirited out of the country after the prince allegedly produced a document purporting that she had been Muslim but had converted to Judaism — a crime punishable by death.
Jewish abductee rescued from an Arab country
Hard to feel empathy towards her.
ReplyDeleteyehe zikhra barukh.
ReplyDeleteShe didn't know what to expect, no one told her that if there is anything worse than being a woman in Islamic society, it is being a Jewish woman in Islamic society.
Carrying proudly her name Cohen when she was the mother of a Saudi-Wahhabi princess was either pure insanity or total disconnect from reality. Either that or she had an incredible amount of courage.
perhaps that's why the media called her "La Mere Courage", "Mother Courage".
it's a very strange strange story,and they are a lot of "gossips" going on around amoung the Jewish Moroccan community, according to the last news from the "Le Parisien" :
ReplyDeleteLe parquet dispose désormais du témoignage d'un voisin d'en face, qui aurait vu la jeune femme enjamber la fenêtre avant de glisser, a priori accidentellement. D'autres témoins ont fait part de disputes régulières - dont une peu avant le drame - avec son actuel compagnon. Ce dernier était dans l'appartement au moment des faits.
http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/audio-affaire-cohen-ahrine-le-parquet-sur-la-piste-accidentelle-20-08-2012-2131292.php
The prosecution now has the testimony of a neighbor across the street, who saw the woman climb over the window before sliding a priori accidentally. Other witnesses expressed regular fights - including one just before the drama - with his current companion. He (a French man) was in the apartment at the time.
Another video on dailymotion dating from 2010, was found , probably posted by Candice herself of her daughter begging her mother to escape while her father and his family were sleeping when in the KSA.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdq2ge_aya-cohen-princess-of-saudi-arabia_news
PRINCESSE AYA COHEN - AL SAOUD,
HRH PRINCE SATTAM AL SAOUD KIDNAPPED IS OWN CHILD TO KEEP SECRET HIS OTHER LIFE... CONVERT TO JUDAISM THE PRINCE COULD BE REJECT OF THE HOUSE OF SAOUD!!!
?????
This 2003 article claims to contain the original version of the US State Dept memo in the next link, which includes illustrative anecdotes on why the potential American spouse should pose questions on what to expect when living in the Kingdom of SA.http://www.meforum.org/520/us-department-of-state-marriage-to-saudis
ReplyDeleteMarriage to Saudis - Consular Affairs - U.S. Department of State
travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_931.html
The American citizen spouse of a Saudi national is, with a handful of exceptions, female. Saudi women are prohibited from marrying non-Arabs except with a special dispensation from the King.
...
In the worst scenario, an American wife can find herself summarily divorced, deported, and deprived of any right of visitation with her children. Sharia (Islamic) law decidedly favors men in the dissolution of marriage, and the laws of Saudi Arabia require that all individuals be sponsored by a Saudi citizen in order to receive a visa, resident or otherwise. Therefore, once a marriage breaks up, the American must leave Saudi Arabia and, in most cases, may only return with the explicit permission and sponsorship of her ex-husband.
If a Saudi husband attempts to prevent his wife from leaving, the Embassy can call upon Saudi authorities to facilitate the American's departure.
The basis for marriage under Shari'a Law is the marriage contract, which is negotiated between the prospective husband and wife prior to marriage. The signing of the contract by the bride and groom and their witnesses in front of a Shari'a Court official is the legal beginning of the marriage. The contract can include prenuptial agreements concerning the custody and place of residence of children and the wife's ability to depart Saudi Arabia if the marriage should be terminated by death of the husband or divorce. An American citizen considering marriage to a Saudi citizen can obtain Saudi legal counsel to assist in negotiating the marriage contract to include agreements of this nature. It is the Embassy' s understanding that prenuptial agreements written into the marriage contract as an integral part of the contract will be subsequently honored by a Saudi Shari'a Court.
What will it be like to raise a daughter?
Cultural differences are never greater than when it comes to the role of women, and a mother raising a daughter in Saudi Arabia can anticipate that her daughter's upbringing will be very different from her own and that her daughter will have dreams and expectations that her mother may not share. Growing up in Saudi Arabia, a young girl may naturally look forward to the day when she comes of age and can wear the abaya and cover her hair. She will naturally be very devout. She may be expected to marry a first cousin. For a Saudi girl, this may be the natural state of affairs; for an American mother of a Saudi girl, it can be unsettling.
It is sad yet unfortunately very predictable that such a thing would happen to her along with the fact that the Saudis will pretty much be not held to account by France for her murder, since misogynist sharia trumps western-born feminism / misandric secularism today in the western world to the point where a misogynist western man would only have to convert to islam to receive both legal protection and religious sanction for his misogyny (along with his Jew-hatred, etc).
ReplyDeleteBeing that she herself was of Mizrachi background, one would have thought that she would have been brought up by her family to simply know better or was she already detached / turned off from her Jewishness thanks to being influanced by secularism, moral relativism, the undead “co-existence myth” and the usual multiculti madness.
The reason that many find it hard to feel sympathy for women like her is the fact that for the past few years (even decades) there is a growing wealth of personal testimonies, stories, news articles, etc out in various forms of media from accross of the world, all of which have patterns consistent enough to warn women of the possible dangers of entering into relationships with muslim men.
In light of the above, is it really any surprise that many who have read enough on similar subjects over the years hold the view that ignorance is no excuse in this day and age?
A key witness living opposite reports that Cohen Ahnine seems to have had a row with her current boyfriend/husband just before she fell to her death.
ReplyDelete