(RNS) — Evangelical pastor Saeed Abedini was once an international symbol of a Christian being persecuted for his faith. Now, he’s been accused in a lawsuit of abducting his 5-year-old daughter from her mother in Turkey and fleeing the country.
A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia issued a restraining order last week barring Abedini from taking his daughter out of the country or out of Virginia, where he resides. The judge also ordered him to surrender his passport and barred him from concealing his daughter’s whereabouts from the court.
Abedini, who was born Muslim in Iran and converted to Christianity, told Religion News Service that he fled Turkey out of fear for his life and to protect his daughter. “I’m concerned for my daughter’s safety more than anything,” he told RNS in a phone interview on Wednesday (June 24).
According to a recent complaint filed in U.S. federal court, Niloofar Ilbaki Aragh, the girl’s mother and an Iranian refugee living in Turkey, said she met Abedini while he was serving as a pastor and the two began a romantic relationship in 2019. Their daughter was born two years later.
The two are not legally married but lived together from 2019 to 202 …