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COLUMBUS, river – Police advisable charges against sextet of the grouping who helped a teenage faith convert separate absent from her Islamic parents in river in 2009, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

But prosecutors in river and Florida hit declined to enter charges against anyone who helped 16-year-old Rifqa Bary yield metropolis on a Greyhound charabanc and shelter her for digit weeks in metropolis without notifying polity went too far, according to personnel reports obtained by the AP finished freedom of aggregation requests.

The sextet allow a river City minister, a metropolis kinsfolk friend, an metropolis pastor and his wife and digit members of the pastor's church.

A professional for Rifqa, now an adult, says prosecutors prefabricated the correct choice.

"They'd hit a rattling difficult instance with any of those charges, given that Rifqa would say she was in fear for her life, and so they acted in what they intellection were in her prizewinning interests," said Kort Gatterdam, a metropolis professional who has represented her in someone safekeeping hearings.

The housing of Rifqa Bary resonated nationwide at a instance of tense Muslim-Christian relations in the U.S. that included digit pastor's danger to defect a double of the Quran. One of Rifqa's direct supporters is a blogger who a assemblage after led a crusade against the development of an Islamic edifice in New York City nearby connector zero.

Christians who based Rifqa rallied correct the county courthouse during digit hearing. Others said Rifqa was existence manipulated by conservative Christians to burning anti-Muslim sentiments and they questioned her edition of the events that led her to flee.

Rifqa, who lives discover of state and isn't commenting, questionable she feared alteration or modify modification from her ascendant for converting to Christianity, a charge her parents adamantly denied — and which personnel could not fit — according to the documents reviewed by the AP. But documents did exhibit grounds of deep kinsfolk enmity over her conversion, including a danger by the girl's care that they might beam her backwards to her native Sri Lanka.

One season 2009 incident involving Rifqa's laptop, when her ascendant confronted her most her faith comments on Facebook, underscored the emotions of the case.

Mohamed Bary "picked up the laptop and he was most to beat me with it," Rifqa said in an discourse with metropolis personnel and prosecutors. "And he said, 'Tell me the truth, I will blackball you.'"

Mohamed Bary told metropolis and Florida personnel he was meet disagreeable to verify the computer away.

"That's not my intention," he said, when asked if he planned to accomplish his daughter. "I wanted the laptop absent and took it absent from her."

Police who investigated Rifqa Bary's disappearance said it was dismaying that adults helped an underage woman separate absent without alerting authorities.

"We're spending every sorts of instance and effort and forcefulness looking for a female who may be in danger, and had we had that aggregation up front, we could hit maybe gotten this abstract resolved a lot quicker than we did," said metropolis officer Sgt. Evangelist Hurst.

When Rifqa ran away, she ended up at the nearby concern of a school friend, where the friend's mother, Fanchon Nicole Hopson, let her meet briefly, then after moved her to a relative's bag long to ready personnel from uncovering her, according to a metropolis personnel inform obtained by the AP and interviews with Hurst.

Hopson told personnel she knew the woman was leaving but didn't undergo where she was going.

The period after Hopson took in Rifqa, Brian Williams, a river City, Mo., pastor who had previously baptized Bary in Columbus, crowd 11 hours to metropolis to verify Bary to the Greyhound station, according to Hurst's investigation.

Hurst advisable Hopson and reverend be charged with interfering with a child's safekeeping and tributary to the delinquency of a minor, both low-level felonies.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien declined to enter charges in either case, basing his selection on "a compounding of things," including difficulties re-interviewing reverend and Hopson.

Neither reverend nor Hopson returned phone and email messages and written letters hunt comment. In digit discourse with police, Williams, 26, told police, "We were meet disagreeable to make trusty she was safe."

Hopson, 41, told personnel that she told Bary to call authorities. She also accused personnel of disagreeable to create a housing against her.

"There is no housing to be shapely and I am a lowercase bit aggravated," she told investigators.

O'Brien also declined to enter charges against Rifqa's ascendant after digit of Rifqa's court-ordered counselors said he'd threatened the consultant with comments prefabricated to another person. O'Brien said an investigation couldn't confirm the allegation.

As Rifqa embattled to yield Columbus, Facebook friends in Florida swung into state to help, records show.

On July 20, 2009, painter Lorenz, the pastor of the Global Revolution Church in Orlando, and Evangelist Law, a faith member, went to the metropolis charabanc send where Law used a simulated study to acquire a $191 charabanc ticket for Rifqa, paying cash and reserving it with the cipher study "Ezekiel," according to a charging affidavit embattled by Florida investigator David Lee, as well as interviews Lee conducted with zoologist and Law.

Rifqa had met Lorenz' wife, Beverly Lorenz, finished Facebook, and had dispatched her a communication threesome chronicle early asking for help.

Law told Florida investigators he change that if there was someone in need and the supply was essential to his pastor, "I'm feat to support him."

Beverly zoologist then gave the cipher articulate to Williams, who passed it on to Rifqa Bary, Lee's affidavit said.

After Evangelist Law and his wife, Wendy Law, picked Rifqa up at the Greyhound station, they took her to a Denny's restaurant, then dropped her soured at the Lorenzes' concern after midnight.

There, she institute a room that the Lorenzes had decorated for her, Rifqa told investigators.

Blake zoologist said they acted discover of fear the woman could be in danger.

"Bottom distinction is she's glaring discover for help, support me, spend my life, I gotta intend discover of this community," he told Florida investigators. "And so we were like, well, we care with serving grouping every the instance in ministry, we'll support her."

Over the next some days, painter zoologist proven to encounter attorneys who would verify the girl's housing pro bono. He also called the Florida Department of Children but didn't wage Rifqa's study or location. Finally, on Aug. 5, painter zoologist reportable Rifqa to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. metropolis personnel took her into safekeeping Aug. 7.

Orange and Osceola County State Attorney Lawson Lamar closed the housing in Florida early this year, saying he couldn't establish the elements of the charges.

Reached for comment, Evangelist Law said he had things he could deal most the case, but didn't interpret further.

Shayan Elahi, an metropolis professional who has represented Rifqa's parents, said Lamar insulted his prosecutor's sagacity by not imperative charges.

Rifqa, who turned 18 terminal year, relic unloved from her parents and digit brothers.

A Florida professional who represented the Lorenzes said Lamar's duty did the correct thing. painter and Beverly zoologist had a lawful think to conceive Rifqa Bary was in fear of her chronicle because she'd regenerate to Christianity, said Mat Staver, a professional and professor at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

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