Qatar identifies parents of girl abandoned at airport

Qatar’s public prosecutor office on Monday announced it had identified the parents of a baby girl who was abandoned in Doha airport, reported EFE-EPA.

Following the discovery of the child, airport security personnel allegedly carried out invasive examinations on women before boarding a plane to Sydney, provoking an international scandal.

The investigations revealed that the parents of the child, who was abandoned at the airport in October, are Asian, the public attorney’s office said in two statements without revealing their country of origin.

“The mother, when leaving the country, threw the newborn in the garbage in one of the bathrooms at the airport exits and boarded the plane to her destination,” the statement read without revealing her destination.

Upon interrogation by the public attorney’s office, the father of the baby admitted “the relationship with the girl's mother, who sent him a message and a photo of the baby immediately after her birth and she said that she was going to abandon the girl she gave birth to and flee to her country”.

The security personnel “fulfilled their legal duty to search and find the perpetrator of this crime,” the statement ran. The statement, however, explained that “some employees exceeded procedures, believing them to be correct”.

“Some of the airport security personnel have acted unilaterally by summoning female medical personnel to carry out an external examination of some travelers, believing that what they have done is in accordance with the law, since they are judicial detention officers who specialize in searching and investigating the circumstances of the crime,” the statement added. “Attempted murder of a girl immediately after her birth, and in the circumstances in which she was found, is one of the most heinous crimes and the most contradictory to human values, in addition to being punishable by the Criminal Code of Qatar with a maximum penalty 15 years in prison”.

On 2 October, a newborn baby was found inside a plastic bag hidden in a garbage container at Doha's Hamad International Airport.

Airport authorities rescued the baby, who is safe in a Doha hospital, and "an urgent search was launched to prevent the perpetrators of the horrible crime from escaping."

Among the affected passengers are women who were traveling to Australia and whose planes were on a layover in Doha. Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said that Qatar allegedly performed gynecological tests on an unknown number of female passengers on at least 10 flights, after protesting to the Qatari government over the "offensive" treatment of women.

The head of Australian diplomacy said Canberra had complained about the "extremely inappropriate" treatment and is awaiting the outcome of the investigations to weigh the next steps.