Skip to footer

US couple finally allowed to leave Qatar after being cleared in daughter's death

Matthew and Grace Huang were initially charged with murder in the death of their African-born daughter, Gloria, and were convicted of lesser child endangerment charges earlier this year.

|
Osama Faisal/AP
American couple Grace, center, and Matthew Huang, left, speak with US Ambassador to Qatar, Dana Shell Smith, right, at the Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014.
  • By Alex Dobuzinskis Reuters

| Los Angeles

A US couple whose convictions were overturned in the death of their adopted daughter in Qatar left the Gulf Arab state on Wednesday after a travel ban that had kept them in the country was lifted, their supporters and the US ambassador to Qatar said.

Matthew and Grace Huang boarded a flight at the airport in Doha and are bound for their home in Los Angeles, said a statement on the website of the California Innocence Project, an organization that works to win the release of wrongfully convicted inmates.

"I am thrilled to announce that the Huangs are leaving Qatar after having the travel ban lifted," its director, Justin Brooks, said in a statement.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that Qatari officials indicated they would lift a travel ban against the Huangs on Wednesday, and he applauded the decision.

The couple was initially charged with murder in the death of their African-born daughter, Gloria, and were convicted of lesser child endangerment charges earlier this year in connection with the 8-year-old girl's death, according to a support website for the family.

An appeals court threw out the convictions on Sunday. Yet when the couple subsequently sought to leave Qatar, they were stopped at the Doha airport and their passports were seized, family spokesman Eric Volz said earlier this week.

After a flurry of diplomacy on behalf of the Huangs, US Ambassador to Qatar Dana Shell Smith said on Twitter on Wednesday that their flight had left the country.

"Matt and Grace Huang are wheels up from Qatar," she said in the post.

The Huangs were arrested in January 2013 after an autopsy found their daughter died of dehydration and cachexia, an irreversible loss of body mass. The couple said Gloria suffered from malnutrition-related diseases since they adopted her from Ghana at age 4.

Their two other children, also adopted, have been living in the United States with family while the case continued in Qatar.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to US couple finally allowed to leave Qatar after being cleared in daughter's death
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1203/US-couple-finally-allowed-to-leave-Qatar-after-being-cleared-in-daughter-s-death
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe