Meriam Al-Khalifa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Meriam al-Khalifa is the daughter of Sheik Abdullah bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, a relative of King Sheik Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa of Bahrain. She acquired notoriety in 1999 after she met Jason Johnson, a United States Marine and a Mormon, in a shopping mall in Bahrain and fell in love with him. She escaped to the United States in November 1999 using forged documents and abandoned her life as a Bahraini royal, opting to marry Johnson and live as a housewife in Nevada. Johnson was court-martialed for his actions, and discharged from the Marine Corps. Al-Khalifa faced charges of illegally entering the United States and deportation proceedings. The princess applied for political asylum, citing that she faced harm, which would have included death for her marriage to a non-Muslim and her exit from the country, which caused embarrassment to the royal family. Johnson said that if she returned to Bahrain, she would be "lashed, executed, stoned, killed, shot" [1]. He later also told the press that there was constant tension with her family, and at one point the FBI told him they had intercepted a Syrian national who said he'd been paid $500,000 to assassinate her.

In 2001 a made-for-TV movie called The Princess and the Marine aired, telling the story of their relationship. It stars Mark-Paul Gosselaar as LCpl. Jason Johnson and Marisol Nichols as Meriam.

In May 2001, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service granted her Permanent Residency status, popularly known as the Green Card.[2]

In June 2001, she resumed communication with her family, according to her attorney.[3]

Despite her earlier claims — she had asked for political asylum in the USA, saying that she faced death in her own country for marrying a non-Muslim, an assertion that she had repeated in public interviews — Meriam Al-Khalifa returned to Bahrain in September 2001, after the 9/11 attacks. According to the Los Angeles Times,

She told friends last week that she and her husband are considering divorce and that her family was concerned for her safety because of violence aimed at people of Middle Eastern descent since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.[4]

The couple filed for divorce on November 17, 2004 (one day after their fifth wedding anniversary) in Las Vegas, Nevada, citing "incompatibility in marriage" as the reason. The couple had difficulties due their different backgrounds, religions, and lifestyles; she was used to privilege and luxury, and he was unable to keep her in the lifestyle to which she was accustomed. According to Jason Johnson, Meriam left him about one year earlier, plunged heavily into the Las Vegas night life, and had become estranged from him. She had been pressing him for divorce for some time.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/e/r/Meriam_Al-Khalifa_efc4.html"
In other languages