The Dallas Morning News Copyright 1995
Saturday, August 26, 1995
NEWS
Sherry Jacobson Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News
Sadri "Sam" Krasniqi was arrested six years ago at a karate competition at a Plano high school and accused of molesting his 4-year-old daughter as she lay in his lap.
Although he was later acquitted, Mr. Krasniqi and his wife, Sebahete, lost custody of their daughter and a son, who was then 10 years old. Last fall, the couple, who are Muslims, learned that their children had been adopted by another family and were being raised as Christians.
Mr. Krasniqi, 55, said Friday that he has tried for years to generate public interest in his plight but was largely unsuccessful until last week, when ABC television broadcast the story on 20/20.
"I don't know what to say, what to do, but I am not guilty. I am an innocent person," he said during a news conference Friday in Richardson. "I would like to kill myself, kill my wife and myself. How can you live without children?"
He said he has had no contact with his daughter, who turned 11 on Thursday, since 1992.
In the last week, there has been an outpouring of support for Mr. Krasniqi from Muslims across the country, said Salam Al-Marayati , director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a national organization that monitors human rights issues affecting Muslims. He flew from the group's headquarters in Los Angeles to be at the news conference.
"We are outraged and shocked to see what had happened to the Krasniqi family," he said. "This family's civil rights have been violated. We are committed to getting them back together because we believe that anything can be undone."
His organization and the Islamic Association of North Texas called Friday for an investigation by state authorities, including the Texas attorney general's and governor's offices, into how the children came to be taken from the Krasniqis.
"We've got two kids who basically have been kidnapped and given the death penalty . . . from seeing their parents again," said Khalid Y. Hamideh, a Garland lawyer and spokesman for the Islamic Association, which claims 10,000 local followers.
State officials, including those with Texas Child Protective Services, which originally obtained custody of the children, could not be reached for comment Friday.
The Krasniqis are Albanian immigrants who have lived in Far North Dallas about nine years and were operating five Brothers Pizza restaurants at the time of the 1989 arrest, Mr. Krasniqi said. The family was forced to sell one of the outlets to pay legal fees and subsequently closed the others when emotional stress made it too difficult for them to work with customers, he said.
"We're crying all night. When we go to serve the customers, they thought we are crazy," he said.
The couple came to the attention of the Islamic Association about a year ago, when the Dallas Observer was researching an article that ran in November. Those who learned of the situation agreed that Mr. Krasniqi's arrest had been a "cultural misunderstanding," Mr. Hamideh said.
According to the police report, dated Aug. 12, 1989, witnesses said they saw Mr. Krasniqi touching his daughter in a way they considered improper as they sat in the gymnasium bleachers at Shepton High School in Plano.
Mr. Hamideh said he has concluded that "witnesses saw what they saw" but did not understand that Mr. Krasniqi was not harming his daughter and that there was no sexual intent in his actions.
"It was basically a father loving his daughter," he said. "This individual was doing what his whole family has been doing for 1,500 years."
Since April, Mrs. Krasniqi has filed two civil lawsuits in federal court seeking $500 million in damages from Plano and Dallas, the district attorney's offices in Dallas and Collin counties and Texas Child Protective Services.
One of the suits was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer because it exceeded the one-year statute of limitations and had other technical flaws.
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