Suspended prison term for Pakistan adoptions woman

Wednesday, September 21, 2011 by Waylon Johnston

Suspended prison term for Pakistan adoptions woman

A woman made infamous because of her handling of adoptions from Pakistan was yesterday given a suspended jail term after she failed to return almost €12,000 to a couple following a failed adoption.

Concetta Charles, 53, of Safi, had signed a contract in 2001 with Raymond and Josette Mallia to bring a baby boy to Malta from Pakistan for adoption and promised them that if it was not successful she would refund €11,650. The money had been requested under the pretence that it would be used to officiate the process of adoption in Pakistan and in 2003 Ms Charles asked them for a further €1,165 to obtain a medical certificate.

She in fact used the money to help fund another adoption by a Maltese family in financial difficulties and to help her adoption organisation in Pakistan, Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera noted.

Mr Mallia testified he had been told by Ms Charles on more than one occasion that the child was on the way. He would show up at the airport only to be told there had been some problem. He had phoned her on these occasions and she gave him different excuses.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera noted that in her police statement Ms Charles admitted to using the money to fund another adoption by a Maltese family who were financially unstable. She also admitted to using some of the money to sort out problems in Pakistan.

The magistrate said Ms Charles had acted deceptively when taking the money from the couple..

This was a very serious crime that merited a suspended jail term. She handed down a two year jail term suspended for four years and also ordered her to pay €12,811 back to the couple.

In June Ms Charles was twice acquitted of misappropriation after the courts found in one case that she had actually carried out her contractual duties during an adoption. In the second instance, an appeals judge overturned a guilty plea and found her not guilty of misappropriation because she had every intention of paying the money back. The judge also ruled that the dispute was a matter for the civil courts.

Ms Charles said she had started acting as an adoption agency in 2001, under the name of The New United Christian Foundation, together with her Maltese husband Dennis, who was born in Pakistan.

In 2003, their activity hit the headlines in Karachi after a newspaper, Dawn Metropolitan, reported that she had admitted to smuggling children out of Pakistan to take them to Maltese couples.

The newspaper said the Pakistani police in Gulshan-i-Iqbal in Karachi had received letters alleging there was a bungalow in the area where four boys and seven girls were kept after being smuggled out of state-run and private hospitals.

Mr Charles had been convicted and jailed for seven years by a Pakistani court. However, that conviction was overturned and he was acquitted by a Human Rights Commission.