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The US Marine who was accused of kidnapping an Afghan war orphan has spoken out to defend his adoption of the three-year-old girl, who is at the center of an international custody battle.
Navy Major Joshua Mast and his wife Stephanie currently have custody of the girl, identified as ‘Baby L’, who survived a Special Operations raid that killed her parents and five siblings in 2019, when she was two months old.
But an Afghan couple related to Baby L, who had been raising the girl, alleged in court documents that in August 2021, the Masts lured them to the US under false pretenses and took her in without their permission.
In an interview with CBS News On Tuesday, the Masts strongly denied the claims, saying they had been upfront about their intentions and only wanted what was best for the girl.
“We’ve been honest about who we are and our concerns about the boy since day one,” Stephanie Mast said.
“I don’t think he used the word adoption,” Joshua Mast admitted of his conversations with the Afghan couple. “We were trying to explain, again, in a way that they could understand, why they don’t have a concept of adoption in Afghanistan.”
Marine Major Joshua Mast is seen with ‘Baby L’, the Afghan war orphan he adopted. Relatives who had been raising the girl accused him of taking her without permission
Navy Major Joshua Mast and his wife Stephanie have spoken out to defend the adoption of the three-year-old girl, who is at the center of an international custody battle.
The case is currently playing out in court, and in November the US Department of Justice filed a motion to intervene in the legal battle, arguing that Mast’s adoption was a violation of Virginia law and should never have been granted.
The government also said Mast’s attempts to take the girl directly conflicted with a US foreign policy decision to reunite the orphan with her Afghan family.
The Masts claim in court documents that they legally adopted the child and that the Afghan couple’s accusations are “outrageous” and “undeserved.”
The dispute over Baby L stems from a September 2019 US raid on a remote Afghan compound, which killed both of her parents.
Unclassified military reports state that Baby L is believed to be the orphaned daughter of a foreign al Qaeda fighter who entered Afghanistan through Turkmenistan, according to CBS.
The girl was rescued by US Special Forces, reportedly at protests by Afghan military partners, who advocated letting her die or drown her, a former army ranger who was present told the network.
“They wanted me to throw the baby into the river because they thought she was a terrorist,” said the former ranger, who asked not to be named for security specialists.
Baby L is seen moments after her parents were killed in a Special Forces raid in Afghanistan. Operators built an ad hoc baby seat for the girl to return to base.
Stephanie and Joshua, seen with one of their children, are accused of trying to use US courts to force the girl into their custody, rather than following Afghan law.
Instead, the girl was returned to base and treated for significant injuries. That’s where Joshua Mast, a Marine attorney who was not involved in the raid, first learned of the girl’s existence and called his wife to discuss adopting her.
‘The moment we found out [Baby L] for the first time, it wasn’t a hard decision to make,” Stephanie Mast told CBS. “It was just that there was an innocent child trapped in an unfortunate situation, and we wanted to see if there was anything we could do to help, and we were able to.”
While he was recovering from his injuries in a US military hospital, the Afghan government and the International Committee of the Red Cross identified his relatives and, through meetings with the State Department, arranged for their reunification.
The girl’s cousin and his wife, young newlyweds with no children yet, cried when they first saw her, they told the Associated Press, saying that taking her in and raising her was the greatest honor of their lives.
However, Mast, reportedly despite orders from military officials to stop interfering, was determined to take Baby L with him to the United States.
According to the AP, he used his military status, appealed to political connections in the Trump administration and convinced a court in a small Virginia town to flout some of the usual safeguards governing international adoptions.
In court documents, Mast says he acted “admirably” in bringing the girl to the United States and caring for her with his wife.
Mast with other members of his family. Her father, Dick (far left) is a professional golfer who used to play for the PGA. Her mother Roberta (second from left) is a real estate agent in Virginia.
Finally, when the US military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, he helped the Afghan family reach the United States.
After they arrived, they say, she took their baby from them at the Fort Pickett Army National Guard base, Virginia.
They have not seen her since and are suing to get her back, saying in court documents that they believed Baby L was being taken to the US for medical treatment and never agreed to relinquish custody.
The Afghan woman said she sank into a deep depression and, despite being nine months pregnant, stopped eating and drinking. She couldn’t sleep. Her husband was afraid to leave her alone.
“Since we came to the United States, we haven’t felt happiness for a single day,” the Afghan man told the AP. “We feel like we live in a dark jail.”
The Afghan woman gave birth to a baby girl just weeks after losing custody of Baby L.
The Afghan couple are listed in court documents as John and Jane Doe, and requested anonymity due to fears for their safety and concerns for their relatives in Afghanistan, now under Taliban control.
Hundreds of people gather near a US Air Force C-17 transport plane on the perimeter of Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, in August 2021 during the US withdrawal.
Although the previous Afghan government determined that the Afghan man was Baby L’s first cousin, so far there has been no DNA evidence to support their blood ties, and court documents indicate that he has resisted DNA testing.
In court documents, Mast says he acted “admirably” in bringing the girl to the United States and caring for her with his wife.
They say they have given him ‘a loving home’ and have ‘done nothing more than make sure he gets the medical care he needs, at great cost and personal sacrifice.’ Mast celebrated the adoption of the boy, whose Afghan family is Muslim, as an act of Christian faith.
In court, Mast, still an active duty Marine, questioned whether the Afghan couple is related to her.
The Masts argue that the girl is “an orphan of war and a victim of terrorism, rescued in tragic circumstances from the battlefield.”
They say she is a “stateless minor” because she was recovered from a compound Mast says was used by non-Afghan foreign fighters.
The case has reached such prominence that the White House commented on it.
“We are all concerned for the well-being of this child who is at the center of this matter,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said after the case was first reported on by the AP in October.
On the other side of the world, the Taliban issued a statement saying that they will “seriously discuss this matter with the US authorities so that the said girl is returned to her relatives.”
The case is currently under seal in a Virginia state court, and in a parallel federal lawsuit filed by the Afghan couple.
Two days after the CBS News interview with the Masts was taped, both families were placed under a gag order preventing them from speaking to the press.