(RNS) — A federal judge ruled Friday (July 10) that a 5-year-old girl must be returned to her mother, an Iranian refugee living in Turkey, ending an international custody battle with the girl’s father, Saeed Abedini, an evangelical pastor and once a religious freedom celebrity.
Saeed Abedini, left, outside a courthouse in Lynchburg, Va., Friday, July 10, 2026. (Video screen grab)
The child’s mother, Niloofar Aragh, filed a complaint in federal court last month alleging the girl’s father had abducted her while she was on holiday with her grandparents in December 2024, and took her to the U.S. without permission.
Abedini, a one-time political prisoner in Iran, told RNS earlier this year he had fled Turkey and taken his daughter with him because he feared for his life and thought the child was in danger.
While Abedini, who lives in Virginia, admitted in court filings he had taken his daughter without permission, he argued the girl was now settled in the U.S. and that returning her to Turkey would be harmful.
“Removing the child from the only home, family, community, and language she meaningfully knows, and delivering her to a country she does not remember and to a caregiver with whom she now communicates only through a translating parent, would present a grave risk of serious psychological harm to a 5-year-old whose entire conscious life has been established in the United States,” Abedini, who represented himself for part of the legal process, wrote in a court filing.
Senior Judge Norman Moon of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia ruled that the 5-year-old had been removed without her mother’s permission and that Aragh had custody rights. He rejected the allegation that returning the girl to her mother would be harmful.
Moon also ordered Aragh’s daughter be placed in the custody of her aunt, who also lives in the U.S., immediately.
“Based on the substantial evidence introduced during today’s hearing, including respondent’s history of failure to comply with court orders and respondent’s correspondence insisting he would defy an order transferring custody, the court finds it necessary to order this custody transfer immediately,” the judge wrote.
Moon’s ruling came after an all-day hearing at a courthouse in Lynchburg, where Aragh testified by video. Devon Slovensky, Aragh’s attorney, said the U.S. travel ban made it impossible for her to come in person.
A native of Iran, Aragh is currently living in Turkey, where she met Abedini. The two lived together for several years but were not legally married. Instead, Abedini said he performed a religious ceremony that married them in God’s eyes, a claim he repeated in court filings.
Slovensky said the ruling showed the American legal system, while flawed at times, still works. She said the odds were stacked against her client, who did not speak English, did not have much money and is not in the U.S.
“What we see here is an Iranian Christian refugee fighting to get her child back through a court system where she can’t even speak the language, and being successful,” she said. “And I think that is, like, a really awesome story about righteousness and justice.”
Slovensky also said Abedini’s own social media posts undermined his arguments.
Pastor Saeed Abedini in a 2022 ministry video. (Video screen grab)
While he claimed that Iran still was threatening his life, he also posted several photos of his daughter in recent weeks, trying to show her as settled in the U.S. — one of the key disputes in the custody case, which was based on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
“Then the question became, well, why do you need your daughter close to you if you’re being stalked and these people are persecuting you wherever you go?” Slovensky said.
Abedini told RNS he had trouble finding a lawyer and that terrorists had threatened him in Turkey, but his dogs had frightened the terrorists away. He has also been accused of sexual abuse, a charge he denied. He said God told him to flee the country, but the court in Virginia did not listen to his concerns.
“I believe I have been set up by the court,” he said. He also fears he will never see his daughter again.
During an interview, he alleged that Iran and Turkey were conspiring against him and that he wanted to save his daughter. He also claimed that Turkish officials were after him because he supported President Donald Trump and the nation of Israel.
“I was the first pastor who made Trump president with prophecies,” he said. “If you don’t believe it, go look at my name, the prophecies.”
The ruling is the latest twist in the story of Abedini, a pastor who was jailed in Iran from 2012 to 2016 for his work with Christians there. His case gained international attention through a “Save Saeed” social media campaign.
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A few months before he was released, Adedini’s then-wife, Naghmeh Panahi, who had been a leader in the campaign to free her husband, alleged Abedini had been abusive during their marriage. The two eventually divorced, and Panahi filed for an order of protection against him. In 2018, Abedini, who had pled guilty to domestic abuse in 2007, was arrested for violating that order.
Panahi told RNS that her marriage had been troubled before Abedini was jailed in Iran but that his experience in jail harmed him. She also said becoming a celebrity for religious freedom had changed him.
“Fame poisoned our family,” she told RNS.
Panahi helped raise about $15,000 to help Aragh with her legal expenses and with the cost of returning her daughter to Turkey. Panahi said she had become concerned about the girl’s welfare about a year ago, and that caused her to reach out to Aragh.
She was criticized a decade ago for talking about the troubles in her marriage and said it was hard to get people to believe her. Though it was hard, she said it was the right thing to do. And she felt God called her to help Aragh.
“It is just such a miracle,” she said.
MAIN PHOTO: Saeed Abedini, left, outside a courthouse in Lynchburg, Va., Friday, July 10, 2026. (Video screen grab)
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