A woman whose international child custody nightmare cost her a job and more than $15,000 said she felt like she was in a spy thriller as she waited for agents to arrest her ex-husband and rescue her 2-year-old son.
For Michelle Al-Nasseri, the thriller had a happy ending: Six weeks after her ex-husband spirited their son to Iraq, she and the boy were reunited in London."This little boy in front of me is so beautiful," she said. "I don't hate my husband. I just hate what he did."
Haitham Khalid Al-Nasseri, 33, was arrested at London's Heath- row Airport on Friday afternoon by agents working with Scotland Yard and the FBI, the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers reported Saturday.
Michelle Al-Nasseri, 23, from the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia, had hired a team of former Green Berets to stand by just in case the agents didn't get the boy.
"During those fleeting moments when I could think, I felt like I was watching a movie of someone else," Michelle Al-Nasseri said Sunday. "I had never imagined something like this happening to me."
Al-Nasseri, a citizen of the United States and Iraq, disappeared with Laith Adam Al-Nasseri in July. He later contacted his ex-wife and demanded that she come to Iraq if she wanted to see their child again.
Michelle Al-Nasseri, a California native who had sole custody of the boy, contacted authorities and told her ex-husband to meet her in England.
"I'm not sure if he was naive or just self-confident," said Stephen Steinhauser, an FBI supervisory special agent. "Unlike Iraq, this is a country we have an extradition treaty with. The British government was very cooperative in this matter."
Al-Nasseri was scheduled to appear in a British court Monday for an extradition hearing.