RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 22a0055p.06 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT ┐ PIERRE SALAME AJAMI, │ Petitioner-Appellee, │ > No. 20-5283 │ v. │ │ VERONICA TESCARI SOLANO, │ Respondent-Appellant. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville. No. 3:19-cv-00161—Eli J. Richardson, District Judge. Argued: October 27, 2021 Decided and Filed: March 29, 2022 Before: GUY, MOORE, GIBBONS, Circuit Judges. _________________ COUNSEL ARGUED: Lyndsay A. Gorton, CROWELL & MORING LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Ashley Goins Alderson, STITES & HARBISON PLLC, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Scott L. Winkelman, Rebecca Baden Chaney, CROWELL & MORING LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Ashley Goins Alderson, Rebecca McKelvey Castañeda, STITES & HARBISON PLLC, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. GIBBONS, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which GUY, J., joined. MOORE, J. (pp. 13–21), delivered a separate dissenting opinion. No. 20-5283 Salame Ajami v. Tescari Solano Page 2 _________________ OPINION _________________ JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Pierre Salame Ajami (“Salame”) petitioned for the return of his two minor children under the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Abduction. The children were removed from Venezuela, their country of habitual residence, to the United States by their mother, Veronica Tescari Solano (“Tescari”). The district court granted Salame’s petition and ordered the children be returned to Venezuela. We affirm. I. Tescari and Salame are Venezuelan citizens and have two minor children together, EAST and PGST. In 2018, Tescari removed the children from their home in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, and brought them with her to the United States. Salame filed a petition under the Hague Convention seeking the children’s return on February 20, 2019. Tescari and, as derivative family members, the children were granted asylum in the United States on June 10, 2019. The district court held a bench trial on Salame’s petition on July 30, July 31, August 6, and December 6, 2019. The parties stipulated to the applicability of the Convention and to the following facts: (1) EAST and PGST are under the age of sixteen; (2) EAST and PGST’s habitual residence is Venezuela for the purposes of the Convention; (3) Petitioner had rights of custody, as contemplated by the Convention, under Venezuelan law at the time the Children were removed from Venezuela; (4) Petitioner was exercising rights of custody with respect to the minor Children at the time Respondent removed them from Venezuela; (5) Pursuant to the Hague Convention, Respondent wrongfully removed the Children from Venezuela and their retention in the United States is wrongful under Venezuelan law; and (6) Petitioner filed his Petition for Return on February 20, 2019, which is within one year of the Children’s removal from Venezuela. Ajami v. Solano, No. 3:19-cv-00161, 2020 WL 996813, at *3 (M.D. Tenn. Feb. 28, 2020). This stipulation established Salame’s prima facie case of wrongful removal, so the only issue before the district court was whether Tescari established an affirmative defense under Article 13(b) …
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