While on a trip back to Sudan, a mother left her children with her husband to go and cook for them.
But when she returned from her parents’ place, Mohamed Ahmed Omer and her two young kids had vanished.
Mr. Omer had rearranged their flights home and took the children back to Australia without telling her.
She called the Australian Embassy and was allegedly told her visa had been cancelled after Mr. Omer informed the Department of Immigration he had separated from her.
The mother-of-two would not see her children for another 16 months.
Mr. Omer faced the first day of a trial by jury in Melbourne’s County Court on March 21, accused of deceiving his wife into leaving Australia after withdrawing sponsorship for her visa.
He is the first person in Victoria to be charged with the commonwealth offence of exit trafficking.
Mr. Omer has pleaded not guilty and denies any allegations that he deceived the woman into leaving Australia.
Following an arranged marriage in Sudan in 2010, the woman moved to Australia on a partner visa supported by Mr. Omer in 2012, crown prosecutor John Saunders told the jury.
She had their first child in 2012 and their second two years later.
Mr Saunders alleged over those two years Mr. Omer became aggressive, violent and controlling with his wife, including “hitting her and threatening that she would die if she did not return to Sudan”.
He claimed she became scared of Mr. Omer, who allegedly did not let her use her phone, controlled all of their finances and did not let her speak to family and friends.
If she did not do what he asked, which included providing free child care to his associates, Mr. Omer allegedly threatened to “destroy her visa, take her children away and kill her”, Mr Saunders claimed.
The family of four returned to Sudan on September 15, 2014, for what Mr. Omer told his wife was a holiday, he said.
The prosecutor alleged Mr. Omer intentionally led his wife to believe she had a valid visa to return to Australia, when in fact he had notified immigration they were separating and withdrew support for her visa in June.
Once in Sudan, they stayed at the home Mr. Omer grew up in, which Mr. Saunders said was “derelict and very unclean”, forcing the woman to prepare meals for her family at another location.
On Sept. 26, she went to her parent’s home to cook and left her children with Mr. Omer, upon his insistence.
When she returned they were gone, along with her passport and travel documents, it’s alleged.
The woman allegedly made numerous attempts to have her Australian visa reissued, between October 2014 and January 2016, but was consistently refused because Mr. Omer would not sponsor her.
But the immigration department did not know she had two Australian-born children.
She was finally granted a visa to return to Australia in February 2016.
Defence barrister Brett Stevens said Mr. Omer disputed much of the facts surrounding the lead up to their trip to Sudan, the circumstances in Sudan and the aftermath.
“He absolutely denies any intention to use deception,” he told the jury of 12.
The trial before Judge Frank Gucciardo continues.
