A Qatari appeals court has acquitted a US couple charged with parental neglect leading to the death of their adopted daughter.
A appeals judge in Doha on Sunday absolved Matthew and Grace Huang, who were charged with parental neglect leading to the death of their eight-year-old daughter Gloria, who had been adopted from an orphanage in Ghana.
The couple were found guilty of child endangerment by Qatari Judge Abdullah in March and sentenced to jail time by a criminal court.
The appeals court ruled the couple were not guilty and said they were free to leave Qatar, based on witnesses' accounts that Gloria was "not neglected in leading a normal life".
The witnesses had testified that they saw Gloria eating one day before her death, said the presiding judge.
Grace and I want to go home and be reunited with our sons... We have been unable to grieve our daughter's death but we want to thank
the judge for today's decision.
"This negates the charge that she was prevented from eating, a charge that the court of first instance used as a base for its initial ruling," said the judge.
Gloria's death certificate, issued by Qatar's Supreme Council of Health, listed the causes of death as "cachexia and dehydration". At the time, she had not eaten during the four days leading up to her death, according to her parents.
"Grace and I want to go home and be reunited with our sons," said Matthew Huang, describing the judicial process in the Gulf state as "long and emotional".
"We have been unable to grieve our daughter's death but we want to thank the judge for today's decision," he told reporters outside the court.
"Today the Qatar legal system, after two long years, finally delivered justice to Matt and Grace," Eric Volz from the US advocacy group David House Agency, who represented the Huangs, told Al Jazeera.
The US State Department publicly commented on the case in March, saying it had urged the government of Qatar to ensure a fair, transparent, and expeditious trial.
"We have been concerned by indications that not all of the evidence was being weighed by the court and that cultural misunderstandings may have been leading to an unfair trial," Marie Harf, the State Department deputy spokesperson, said at the time.
Both adoption and multiracial families are rare in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar and the family's supporters maintain Qatari authorities misunderstood the Huangs' situation.
The Huang family moved to Doha in 2012. Matthew Huang is an engineer who was working on a water purification project related to the 2022 football World Cup, which will be hosted in Qatar.
The Huangs have two other adopted children, also from Africa.
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