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No!

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No!

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No!

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No!

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No!

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No!

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No!

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My son was my whole world.

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And one day, I'm gonna find him.

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Everything had been thrown out,

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and the entire place was cleaned.

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They were just gone. There's nothing left.

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Oh, my God.

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He took the kids.

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Every day our hope was that he's coming back.

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But there was nothing.

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He disappeared without a trace.

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Everything was turned upside down,

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and everything that I believed to be true is not true.

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There is no playbook for kidnapping.

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but I believe he's gonna die.

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Who will throw this đ visiting urc

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When I dream about my kids,

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sometimes they're in trouble,

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to get to them. And sometimes we're just spending time doing the things that we

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like to do together. For that moment, they're alive and they're with me. So I

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love dreaming about my kids because they're actually there.

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I met Ahmed Kindeel when I was 28 and he was 30. I was planning to go to medical

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school and he was pursuing an MBA in order to spend more time in finance.

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When we initially started dating, all of our dates were sports, whether it was

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playing soccer, going to a volleyball group, racket ball. Gosh, we used to go

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dancing a lot every Friday. It was either East Coast, Swing, West Coast, Swing. We did

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all sorts of great dance routines and it was really fun.

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Ahmed grew up in Cairo. He's Muslim. I grew up in Berlin and my background was

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Christian. But what I felt really brought us together is that we both came from a

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very middle-class upbringing and so we had some of the same values even if we

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came from different religious backgrounds. Ahmed and I knew each other a

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couple of years before we got married. And then nine months later, my daughter,

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Aminam, was born September 1st, 2003. It was just about three weeks after I

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started medical school. And then right between a second and third year, my son

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Belel was born in January 4th, 2006. Aminam is such a warm person. She's a little bit

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more shy than her brother, but she has this core of inner strength that comes

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through every once in a while. Belel is more outward and fun-oriented in a lot of

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ways and he engaged everyone.

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Rebecca and I met the first day of residency in Boston and subsequently

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followed each other to Virginia for a job. And when Rebecca and Ahmed first moved

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to Virginia, every Wednesday was dinner night. We had sleepover nights for the

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kids, game nights. And Ahmed was always very welcoming. He took good care of the

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kids. He was a good dad. But he at that point was actually not working. He had a

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job in Boston and then in the financial crisis had lost his employment there.

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And after 2008, finance was just not a very good area to be working in. From that

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point, Ahmed did not ever show interest in getting a job. He smiled less and he

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was less positive and not open at all to any dialogue or discussion. He regarded

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me solely focused towards the children and within my function as a mother, more

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so than as a woman or a professional. So he really was not the same person that he

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was when I met him. Ahmed would have just stayed together the way that we were,

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but I was the one who is not happy. So Ahmed and I separated in June of 2013.

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After we separated, I would get the kids for two weekdays and Ahmed would have them

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the other weekdays and then we would basically split the weekends. But Ahmed

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tried to make it very difficult for Rebecca to see Amina in Belal because

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Rebecca was the working parent. He was also moving in a much more conservative

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religious direction and Amina and Belal were attending the school at the mosque

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on Saturdays. So it became abundantly clear that Ahmed was on one trajectory and

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how he wanted the kids to be raised and I felt I was pretty squarely on a very

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different trajectory.

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It was a Thursday before Labor Day. The children were going to go with Ahmed to

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Toronto to look at a college for their cousin. He said that he was going to be

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returning on September 1st that Monday, which is Amina's birthday. She was

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turning 11 years old. So he expected to be back in the country at that point.

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When Ahmed came to pick up the children, we were sitting on the couch watching

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something on the iPad. Belal immediately ran over to the front door and had to

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show it to his father. Then immediately ran out to the car and I told Amina that

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it was time to go. And right at the door, she gave me a hug, gave me two kisses.

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I told her that she should have a good weekend in Toronto with her cousins and

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that I was looking forward to wishing her a happy birthday. Not too much longer

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after that.

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I watched them driving off.

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That was the last time I saw my kids.

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On Friday, the day after the kids got picked up in the evening, I texted Ahmed

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and told him that I want to call Amina on her birthday. He confirmed that he was

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going to be back on the 1st. I didn't have any contact with them on Saturday and

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Sunday, but on Monday, I tried to call him multiple times on his cell phone and

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he wouldn't pick up and at that point, September 1st, he really should have been

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back. It was infuriating not to be able to reach my children. I called multiple

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times from the hospital and couldn't get a response. It was a little

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disconcerting, although it wasn't unusual for him. Just a passive aggressive move,

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not to let me talk to my daughter on her birthday. So that night, I texted Ahmed to

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please tell Amina happy birthday.

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That Tuesday, September 2nd, Amina was going to go to middle school for the

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first time and Belal was going back to elementary school. So my sense was that

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if the kids were in school, then everything was fine. But I called both

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schools in the morning. They told me that they weren't there and they hadn't

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shown up that day. At that point, I got really concerned and panicked and angry

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and just hurt and really concerned about the kids.

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The problem was that I was at my remote clinic where I'm the only anesthesiologist

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around and there were still patients to be seen and I can't leave. I contacted the

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police that day and I called every hospital in Toronto just to see if maybe

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they had possibly gotten into an accident. And then I called Ahmed's father in

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Egypt and I asked him where Ahmed was and what had happened. He didn't know what

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I was talking about and he wasn't concerned, which concerned me. And that to me

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was a real warning sign that he must have known something. So I called Daphne and I

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asked if she could please check Ahmed's house for me.

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When I went to the house, there were no cars and nobody was home and the windows

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were blocked. So I went to the back of the house. There was a curtain that was

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pulled aside and I looked through a glass door and I knew that something bad had happened.

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I called Rebecca and I told her the house is empty, completely empty. She told me that

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everything was gone. There's nothing left.

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The bottom just fell out and I was in a free fall. There's just no other way to describe it.

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I mean everything is torn away from you and everything was turned upside down. I don't know what's going on.

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But moments later they said that we needed intubator patients so I remember going right back to work.

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I was just in tears. I couldn't stop crying and the surgeon and the entire team looked up and said,

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are you okay? And I said, really not. I don't know where my kids are. I was just like simultaneously

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panicked and just sliced open.

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On that Friday, the James City County Police Department explained that the flight records

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had been found and it was clear that Ahmed and the kids did not in fact travel to Canada.

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They actually flew from JFK through Kyiv and from Kyiv then to Istanbul and in Turkey.

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That was really shocking and that frightened me in ways I can't even describe to you.

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The FBI became involved with the case in September 2014 and immediately after the FBI was tipped off

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that Amina and Belal had been taken by their father, a federal arrest warrant was issued for Ahmed

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by the Eastern District of Virginia for two counts of international parental kidnapping.

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One for Belal and one for Amina.

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And one of the first steps to the initial part of the investigation was to do a thorough review of

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his financials looking for anything that would lead to Ahmed and the children.

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When I looked through bank records and credit card records from the FBI, it was shocking to me.

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Ahmed had gone to a survivalist camp that was up in the mountains.

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He went to a shooting club to learn how to shoot guns multiple times.

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He was never a gun fanatic.

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Survival training would be helpful to anyone if they were crossing through borders,

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doing some things on foot, spending a couple days outside.

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He also bought different types of camping equipment such as sleeping bags, boots for the children,

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and he sent them overseas.

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So there's our little things that showed that Ahmed didn't just take his children on a whim.

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He had a well-oiled plan before he left the country.

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But now I needed to find my children.

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I checked Amina's email account multiple times and the tablet that the children had

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was used to check Amina's email address in December of 2014.

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When I looked at the IP address of where that tablet was, it was in the Hattay province,

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close to the city of Reyhanli, which is in that little southern tip of Turkey that's right on

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the border to Syria. That was close to a war zone.

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That frightened me. That really, really frightened me because I thought, what does that mean?

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I'm enjoying something that he was not supposed to join and pull my children into.

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That maybe he was in a really unsafe place with my kids right now and I don't know where they are.

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I can't keep them safe anymore.

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We don't know where he was going and whether Ahmed has changed his name,

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his children's name, created new identities. These are all possibilities and potentially that's a

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reason they can't be tracked. I was actively involved in just trying to find any way to

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reach my children. I've hired three different private investigators and I've contacted congressmen

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and senators. I set up a webpage that allowed me to say, I am looking for my children.

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If you know anything, please get in touch. But nothing seemed to be substantive.

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Until September of 2015, about a year since Ahmed had abducted the kids, I received an email

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that was simply called, kids are okay. And it was from Ahmed. Just wanted to let you know that they

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are well and doing great. We live on a small farm and they are loving it. They got all kinds of

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animals and it's keeping them busy. I understand you must be angry at me, but you left me no other

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choice. I knew long before you asked for a divorce that it is coming and it wasn't going to wait

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till you find a job somewhere and take full custody of them. So once they're old enough and can

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distinguish right from wrong, they will contact you. And at the right age, they can decide where they

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want to live. It was an infuriating email. On the one hand, it was a relief to hear that my kids were

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alive. It was also clear to me that the kids were being heavily influenced to adopt whatever

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approach to life Ahmed felt was appropriate. And he was going to influence them to the point that they

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probably would never want to contact me. What was found out about the email was that the recovery

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email address was one of Ahmed's known email addresses. It was clearly from him. And it originated

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in that same area in Turkey where Amina's email address had previously been checked. That same

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small part that's close to Syria. I got the contact of a Turkish detective who went down to Southern

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Turkey that's close to the Syrian border looking for the kids there looking for the IP address of

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this particular email. He found an internet cafe that this might have been attributable to, but he

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really did not find out any information over and above what the State Department, the police and the

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FBI were able to recover. So there had been absolutely nothing for quite a while. That was a

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really hard period of time. And then I found out that Ahmed applied for an Egyptian ID card in

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2016 and he registered his ID at his parents address in Giza. If that is true and along with Ahmed's

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email in 2015 saying they're on a farm surrounded by animals tied with Rebecca's understanding of

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that Ahmed's father also owned a farm located midway between Cairo and Alexandria is probably the best

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clue that we have that they are possibly in Egypt. So I hired an investigator trying to work together

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with people in Egypt to see if there was any trace of the kids or if they were seen anywhere

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around Ahmed's parents, but they didn't come up with anything. I really wanted to go to Egypt,

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but I've been intently warned against going there. I am not protected overseas. Anyone can come up

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with any kind of charges. So it's from what I hear a very unwise idea. The fact that we believe Ahmed

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is overseas makes things a lot more challenging because specifically in Egypt parental kidnapping

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is not considered a crime. He's a biological parent of these children. They're his children just

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like their Rebecca's children. The father can decide what he wants to do with those children.

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I as a mother don't have any possibility of getting those children back or even forcing a

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communication with them. There's a really new recourse and that's so unfair. I don't know why

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they haven't contacted Rebecca, but I'm wondering if he didn't stage some accident and told the kids

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she's dead or just banned them from the internet because there's absolutely no way in the world

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Amina and Belal would not have contacted mom. They adore their mom and their mom adored them.

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January 4th, 2017. Belal, today's your birthday and though I'm sad that I'm not with you,

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I hope you're surrounded by happiness, hope, fun and kindness.

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The loss of not having my kids is so great it would be crippling to feel that emotional impact

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every time I enter the house. So I write in a journal to them every day and that's what I really

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allow myself to feel and to feel close to them again.

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She writes to them every single day. She made it very personal. These are her children. She didn't

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deserve to have them taken from her. So my heart breaks for Rebecca and the fact that she has gone

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so long and that we haven't been able to provide the answers for her that she and her children deserve.

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It's not their fault and they deserve to know that their mother cares about them.

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I miss most of you Amina and Belal so much and

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I hope that I have an opportunity to see the people that you've grown into.

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The people that you are now and how lovely you must be and how curious about the world.

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Aziz was born on November 13, 2010.

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And that day changed my life. We were all there the day that he was born

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and Aziz was the greatest blessing to our family. He brought such joy to our house.

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And Abdul really loved spending time with him.

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Oh my god catch him catch him catch him.

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Aziz's mother Rabia was born in Columbus Georgia. Her families originally from India and Pakistan.

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We met in Alabama when we were in school and it was actually my mom introduced us.

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Rabia was in undergrad. She's a very strong personality. She's somebody that makes it a

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point to know what she wants and demand what she wants. And for someone who also has a strong

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personality we were attracted to each other. Over the course of a few years we realized that we

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wanted to get married. And when Aziz was first born we actually lived with my parents in New Orleans.

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But you know Rabia had a hard time getting along with them and you know it was very clear that we

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couldn't live in the house and so we moved out.

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I'm a pulmonologist that works in an intensive care unit and Rabia initially worked at the same

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hospital I did for a very short period of time and then she quit that job and then she worked at a

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local cancer agency and then she left that job. She would always find a reason to change her job.

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You know she didn't like somebody. She didn't like her boss. Her personality was very guarded

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and you never got the feeling that you really knew who she was.

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As Aziz grew older we started having lots of problems. You know fighting was almost daily.

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There were arguments in front of Aziz so in April of 2014 we decided to separate.

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She requested that she go back to Atlanta because that's where her family's support was.

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I really agreed with her initially because I thought if she needs help with Aziz that it might

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be a good idea and she made it seem like hey we're still working on this marriage let's try to make

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this work. It was hard for me but we basically had an agreement where we did every other weekend

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and so I just thought you know this is temporary. And then after several months

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out of left field Nemptil was served with divorce papers and it was a shock.

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It all changed. Rabia would put up hindrances and roadblocks trying to stop me from seeing Aziz.

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She would schedule soccer games during my weekends and she would make up excuses about him being sick

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so she would try to prevent him from seeing me.

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It seems that during that whole period she was meeting with lawyers, she was finding out about

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custody, she was figuring out what she needed to do in order to keep Aziz in Atlanta.

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Ultimately Rabia wanted Aziz to have nothing to do with his life you know in New Orleans.

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And then once she filed divorce papers Rabia blocked Abdul from seeing Aziz and he had to go to court

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and had her served with papers to have them inform her that he had a right to see his child.

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The divorce was finalized in 2015

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but Rabia still kept Aziz from his dad.

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And that's what led me to push hard for a custody evaluation. I wanted to have

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the right to spend as much time with my son that was allowed and it was right about a year later

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when the custody evaluators recommended that I get primary custody of Aziz because they felt like

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Rabia was not allowing me to spend my due time and be a good dad for Aziz.

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When Rabia found out that Abdul was going to be awarded a full primary custody of Aziz

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she went to the courts and made these horrific baseless abuse allegations against Abdul.

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She went into the criminal court system making accusations that me and my family were abusive

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in order to delay the court evaluation from happening and it turned into this world

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when where a lot of lawyers got involved and it became about a year and a half of investigation

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but what made it so hard was that I wasn't allowed to see Aziz. That was really tough.

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And then as all of the court staff progressed we became aware that Rabia had been in a relationship

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with someone else. Elliot Bouchois was a friend of hers that she knew in college.

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Towards the end of our marriage when we were having problems there were some phone calls

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between them so at some point when our marriage was ending was when they were reconnecting.

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Elliot started coming to court with Rabia and that's how he found out that Elliot and Rabia

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were actually married. He wasn't a lawyer but she fired three or four lawyers. Her and Elliot

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became their own lawyers and they represented themselves when they came to court and with

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time every judge that they went in front of started seeing their lies and manipulation.

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And then finally after 18 months of thorough investigation the DA in Atlanta realized that

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all the accusations were all false and I was going to get full custody for Aziz.

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We were to meet on November 28, 2017 in the Atlanta courtroom and that's when all the

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restrictions were going to be lifted. It was really going to happen so there was this joy.

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We get to the Atlanta courtroom we're waiting for our case. The judge shows up and

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Rabia is not there.

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There was a momentary panic amongst our family but we just thought okay this is Rabia being

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Rabia she's going to try to throw something else at us you know to try to prolong this.

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We waited several hours thinking or hoping that there was a delay

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but Rabia didn't show up.

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I left the courthouse and I didn't have my son.

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At this point I'm very worried I'm calling his school. His school says that they haven't seen him

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for a week. He didn't come to school the week before Thanksgiving the last time they saw him

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was the Friday before. I make phone calls to her family and we don't get any response.

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And then finally we realized that she kidnapped him that's what was happening.

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She kidnapped him and ran.

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Devastating.

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Horrific. It was confusing you know it didn't seem real.

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And Abdul was terrified. It was as if removing his heart. He always said the nights were the toughest for him.

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Look in the quiet that's when he has time with his thoughts you know.

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To think about his life with Aziz.

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I remember the last time I saw Aziz. It was March of 2016.

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It was just a normal weekend.

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He had a lot of fun we took a lot of pictures.

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But I said hey Aziz it's time for you to leave.

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And I put him in her car. And he used to always he'd put up his hands and he'd say

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Baba how many days before I see you again.

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It was like five more days.

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And they drove off and my thought was hey I'm going to see you in five days because it's my weekend.

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I'm at spring break. That was you know four plus years ago.

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We thought Robby was crazy. We thought that she was vindictive.

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But we never thought that Robby was capable of this.

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We hired private eye after private eye in Atlanta in New Orleans

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and other places around the country to find any information about Aziz.

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The first thing that everyone said was that I need to get national law enforcement

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involved to investigate Aziz's abduction.

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But there has to be a felony warrant out for Rabia.

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And initially there was some disagreement between police departments that the jurisdiction is in Atlanta or New Orleans.

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Finally after two years the court gave a felony kidnapping warrant against Rabia for the abduction of Aziz.

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Once there was a felony kidnapping warrant against Rabia

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the U.S. Marshals got involved in the case.

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The U.S. Marshals got involved in early 2020

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and the U.S. Marshals involvement was about three years or so behind the actual disappearance.

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So we're basically starting off way behind already.

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We conducted multiple interviews in several states.

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Add up to U.S. Marshals from the Northern District of Georgia went out to Duluth

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and attempted to interview Rabia's mother and father.

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They were being evasive during questioning and they appeared to not be concerned about where their daughter was,

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where their grandchild was or where Elliot was located.

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They just referred everything to their attorney.

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After talking to the U.S. Marshals I found out that this was something that Rabia and Elliot planned out.

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I mean it was cold and calculated.

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Rabia and Elliot had taken Aziz out of school 10 days prior to November 28th.

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They sold their cars to CarMax in Atlanta.

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Elliot had quit his job.

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They both shut down their cell phones, closed their bank accounts, closed all their social media and they disappeared.

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If they assumed new identities they could get new employment,

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maybe establish lines of credit, create a whole new lifestyle.

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It's obviously been done before or if somebody were to finance them they could also be living off cash.

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Could be friends, could be family.

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I don't know.

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This is the day he was born.

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God.

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We've done everything that we can think of to find some trace of Aziz, Rabia, Elliot.

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His laugh was contagious.

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Was everything contagious.

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And outside of you know when they sold their cars in 2017,

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we have yet to find any credible link to them in any way.

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And that's what makes this so hard.

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Four years later we still don't have any sign of them.

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But if you think that we're going away,

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if you think that Abdul or me or my family is ever going to stop looking for Aziz,

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if you are sorely mistaken, because we will never, never rest.

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Until he's returned.

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When Aziz disappeared, time literally stopped.

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So to me, he left yesterday.

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And so I think about him every day and I do things every day to try to find him.

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I'm going to keep fighting till I see him.

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And one day he's going to walk through a door and I'm going to be standing on the other side.

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It's time for him to come home.

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You

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You