WARSAW, April 3. /TASS/. Warsaw’s district court has ruled that the Russian children would stay with their biological father, the Russian national Dmitry Lisov who fled with them from Sweden, where they had been placed in a foster family, but was later detained in Poland, Judge Zaneta Seliga-Kaczmarek read out on Wednesday after a five-hour hearing.
According to the judge, the court ruled to "place the children in father Denis Lisov’s custody."
However, they are not allowed to leave Warsaw until the decision on asylum in Poland is taken.
"A family liaison officer will monitor the family once a month," the judge added.
"The father does not pose a threat to his children. The girls are very close to him," Seliga-Kaczmarek said.
Earlier, Lisov applied for asylum in Poland to get protection from Sweden’s juvenile justice. He assured the judge that while his application for asylum was being considered, he would find a job in Warsaw, would find a school and a nursery school for his children and would start a normal life. A flat has been found for them in the Polish capital and he has been already offered some jobs.
"My daughters want to be with me. I am their biological father. They do not want to go back," Lisov said. "I am ready to stay with children in Poland as it is a country that praises family values. I am sure that we will not be separated in Poland," he added and underlined that the extradition to Sweden was an absolute nightmare for him.
"I will never see my children there," he concluded.
The Lisovs’ case
On Monday, the Russian national Dmitry Lisov and his three daughters aged 12, 6 and 4 years were detained by Polish border guards at Warsaw’s airport. They arrived on a ferry in Poland from Sweden where they had lived.
In 2017, the Swedish juvenile welfare authorities removed the girls from their father’s home after Lisov’s wife, who was suffering from a severe mental illness, had been admitted to hospital. The girls were placed in a foster family of Lebanese descent.
A few days ago, Lisov, who had not been deprived of his parental rights, took his daughters from the foster family. Sweden put them on a wanted list. In Warsaw, Russian diplomats and lawyers stood up for the Lisovs. They reminded the Polish law enforcement agencies that under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), children cannot be separated from their parents.