American man sees daughter for 1st time in 18 months after alleged abduction by Taiwanese mother

美國男子在台灣母親涉嫌綁架後，18個月後首次看到女兒

Man only allowed to see daughter through sporadic video chats until Saturday's meeting


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — An American man was finally able to see his daughter in person on Saturday (Jan. 30), a year and a half after her Taiwanese mother had allegedly abducted her.

Ariel Azoulay, 38, alleges that the 32-year-old mother, surnamed Hsu, "abducted" their child in August of 2019. Since then, he has been involved in a long custody dispute that took him to Taiwan on Nov. 21 of last year.

For his first two months in Taiwan, Hsu, who is filing for divorce from Azoulay in Taiwan, refused to allow him to see the toddler. He has instead been limited to brief video chats.

On Saturday, there was a breakthrough when a court issued a temporary injunction that stipulated that he is to have 90 minutes of video chat time per day with the child on weekdays and three hours of in-person visitation on Saturdays and Sundays. He told Taiwan News that he had his first face-to-face meeting with his daughter, now two years and eight months old, for the first time in 18 months on Saturday.

However, he claimed that Hsu had only agreed to let him see his daughter at Nangang Precinct Police Station in Taipei, rather than an "open space" as stipulated. He said the injunction is only good until Feb. 16 because his visa is set to expire that day.

He says that he is in the process of extending his visa and the injunction, as there remain many more court sessions in the ongoing legal battle. He expressed confidence that he would be able to extend his visa three more months.

Azoulay alleges that Hsu has not allowed him to see his daughter in the video chats for the full hour mandated by the judge. In addition, he claims she cut Sunday's in-person visitation short to one hour, rather than the three originally agreed upon.

Nevertheless, he emphasized that his daughter was happy to see him in person and said, "I think we're making good progress."