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>> reporter: it is an international nightmare that began with a most american of love stories. in 1995 michael shannon was a computer specialist in chicago when his best friend invited him to a company softball game. the company was the engineering giant bechtel, and on that softball field he met a bechtel employee, nermeen khalifa, and fell in love. >> she was in your eyes american. >> americanized. yeah. i didn't find out until three months after we were dating that her father was born in cairo. >> reporter: her egyptian father was an extremely wealthy and powerful businessman who made sure his daughters, including nermeen, were born u.s. citizens. it wasn't long before michael shannon and nermeen khalifa were married. and michael found out just how wealthy the khalifa family was. >> for a while was it a good marriage? fun?
been growing up here. 12 long years. 12 years not even seeing a single photograph. but that is about to change. it's 7:05 a.m. sunday morning. the beginning of the school week in cairo. and two boys, appearing to be about 16 and 12, are walking out of the apartment building where nermeen khalifa lives with michael shannon's two sons. khalifa has refused to give cnn a picture of her boys. she has refused to allow the u.s. state department to take a photo of adam and jason. and for a dozen years has denied their father a single image. these undercover pictures, blurred to protect their identities, will be the first michael shannon has seen of his children since august 22nd, 2001. >> listen, i want you to do something. i know he's got a computer in front of you. >> mm-hmm. >> i want you to just open up that computer, and i want you to hit play.
this is all his side of the story. these are all his lies. and i don't know how it's on record, on court records at all. because i was just -- i never had any rulings against me for any of these things that you mentioned. >> i have the court records with me. i could show you them. i'm stunned that you haven't seen them. you were part of them. >> i have not seen any court records at all. >> reporter: there is no record at all that nermeen herself was abused. again, she says, that is a conspiracy. >> i had a broken tooth. and a swollen nose. >> the reason i ask is because i have got huge files on this case through the years and i haven't seen any of that. >> i'm telling you, even the police were biased against me. >> and that's why you fled to egypt? >> why do you have to word it that way? i didn't flee. i was protecting myself and my children.
the first male grandchild of the khalifas. nermeen's mother came over for the birth pf pictures show a beaming mother, father, and grandmother. there was even time for a family visit to cairo. michael shannon says his father-in-law was so overjoyed to have a grandson. he offered michael a job and a house. with just one condition. they had to live in egypt. >> i said, well, the problem is your daughter, my wife, hates this country. she hates egypt. women are second-class citizens here. she can't smoke. she can't drink. >> more people visit spring training games than they go to -- >> reporter: there was another reason not to move to egypt. michael shannon's son from another marriage. mike was 11 years old when adam was born. now 27, he recalls the little brother from whom he became
don't know. >> it could be him. it could be. yes, it could be him. >> reporter: he looks like a man. >> yeah. i spent the last -- 11 years with -- image of a 5-year-old. in my mind. >> reporter: and what about jason? >> there's no way to tell. the picture i have of jason, he's 10 months old. it could very easily -- >> reporter: do you see any of your family in him? >> certainly i do. he looks like my daughter. >> reporter: how does it feel to be looking at these photographs of these people and after you said 11, 12 years you can't even determine if these are indeed your sons? >> it's why i've been trying to get a photo for ten years, from the government. the u.s. embassy, office of
knock your house down and they burn down your house. he's been watching too much of the israeli/palestinian thing. and she told me that they told jason, the younger boy, that their father had been killed in an accident when he was a baby, but that adam had told him different, that their father was still alive and he was living in america. >> after we returned from cairo, we got a phone call, too. >> adam, do you and jason want to see your dad? >> a young man on the other end said he was michael shannon's son, adam. most of that phone call was off the record. but he did allow us to record this about his mother, nermeen. >> she's a great, caring mother, very considerate. and she does whatever i ask. if i asked her at this moment to take me to the united states and give me a ticket, she would
i think like around 6:00 or 7:00 at night in california. i said, well, they're online right now. why would they be online at 3:00 a.m. in the morning? >> reporter: they weren't. her mother and her father were in fact at the family-owned condominium north of san diego. flown there not knowing he was the subject of an international arrest warrant for her part in aiding and abetting the kidnapping of adam and jason. >> we thought it was too good to be true. we didn't think too much of it. let's go ahead and call out there. and sure enough, someone picked up the phone at that their gnome california. >> i called the fbi and said they're in san diego at their house. i called the number. impossible. she's red flagged. she can't get through customing, through ins. i finally had the maryland police call and say they were at pacific bell and electric company, picked up the phone. got the san diego county sheriffs and kicked the door in
>> in washington, ambassador susan jacobs had no real answers either. in this specific case, michael shannon has not even seen a photograph of his children in 12 years. >> and this is true in other of the 22 cases. i'm not going to speak about a specific case. but all of these cases are very sad, horrible cases where one of the parents has been deprived of their children for long periods of time. half of the cases are more than ten years old. and the others date from 2012. but those are only the cases that we know about. >> michael shannon says the last time he spoke with his older son, adam, was years ago. and it was a bitter phone call. >> about six years ago on his birthday, she let me speak to adam. at the time he was 10. and jason was 6. and he was -- i hope bulldozers
>> we've got a good friend, americans have a good friend. >> reporter: it would have been a bad time to bring up a minor issue like the kidnapping of michael shannon's two boys by the family with ties to egypt's president. suddenly, michael shannon felt very alone. and in the letter from nermeen khalifa's sister michael shannon was told, give up. "force and bad tactics will only serve to put you farthest away from your objective," she writes. "the children need to be with their mother. this is islamic law." and finally, eman khalifa wrote, "please don't worry about them. you should be happy for them." michael shannon's fight was only beginning. [ male announcer ] this is the story of the little room over the pizza place on chestnut street the modest first floor bedroom in tallinn, estonia and the southbound bus barreling down i-95. ♪ this magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins.
a visit with no one from the shannon family present. he will join his infant brother jason on the trip to visit a cousin. their older half-brother mike shannon recalls just how nervous his father was. >> nobody wanted to say it, but the thought always was in the back of your mind, you know, what are they getting at here? why all of the sudden change? but at the end of the day you kind of want to understand that from a grandmother's standpoint she wants to have some time with her grandson. >> reporter: the shannon family's trust in afaf khalifa was misplaced. thomas fleckenstein, the state's attorney in ann arundel county, maryland says the facts would later reveal adam and jason's grandmother was the co-conspirator of an international kidnapping weeks in the works. >> she came from her home country of egypt. she came here. she participated in the planning of the removal of the children from maryland. she participated in the story