KUALA LUMPUR: Deputy Home Minister Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin said he had obtained permission from Shalwati Norshal to bring back her four children to Malaysia.
He said he had asked for her permission when he met her at a prison in Stockholm, Sweden, with the woman signing the consent letter.
Hamzah said it was necessary that he obtained the woman’s permission first before bringing back the children to Malaysia.
He said he also discussed with Shalwati, a teacher who is on no-pay leave, on her children’s schooling in Malaysia
“She requested that her children be placed at national schools. She does not want to sent the children to international schools because of the different culture.
“We will discuss with the children on the school they want to go to,” he told reporters at Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s residence at Jalan Langgak Duta here yesterday.
Hamzah was there accompanying the children — Aishah, 14; Ammar, 12; Adam, 11 and Arif, 7 — to meet the prime minister and wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.
The children arrived from Stockholm yesterday and were then taken to the prime minister’s residence.
Their parents, Shalwati and Azizul Raheem Awaluddin, a Tourism Malaysia officer in Stockholm, are being held in remand by Swedish authorities until Feb 10 on a charge of beating the hand of their youngest son for not praying.
They were detained on Dec 18, 2013.
Hamzah said had had been instructed by the prime minister to go to Sweden again to resolve the case.
“I have met by counterpart at the Swedish Home Ministry to discuss our stand in the Convention on the Rights of the Child signed by both countries on Feb 17, 1995.
“I also thanked the Swedish government and the Malaysian Embassy there for working hard to resolve the problem that we have been able to bring back the children. — Bernama