THE price of a mother’s love, perhaps the most impossible of precious commodities on which to place a value, was fixed yesterday at £17.5 million.

A woman who has been separated from her four youngest children for more than four years agreed in the Court of Appeal to give up that sum from her record divorce settlement to be able to see them again.

Mona al-Khatib said that her financial loss was insignificant when compared with the restoration of her relationship with her sons and daughters.

Ms al-Khatib, 48, has not seen her youngest children since they were abducted by her former husband, Abdullah Masry, in April 2000. Dr Masry, 56, a wealthy businessman from Saudi Arabia, took the children to live in Jeddah, where his former wife has been unable to visit them because she fears that she would not be allowed to leave the country. He has also refused to pay Ms al-Khatib a penny of a £26.5 million divorce settlement, the biggest ordered in Britain, awarded by the High Court in 2002. The sum included a £2.5 million war chest for Ms al-Khatib to continue her legal fight to be reunited with her children.

The lengthy litigation ended when lawyers for Ms al-Khatib and Dr Masry disclosed an agreed settlement.

Dr Masry has conceded that his school-age children, two daughters now 13 and 16, will be able to see their mother during school holidays. The couple’s three other children are male and aged 18, 19 and 21.

In response, Ms al-Khatib has agreed to accept a smaller divorce settlement of £8.8 million, consisting primarily of the proceeds of the former family home at Lowndes Square, Knightsbridge, and the money from the sale of a villa in the South of France, which she will use to set up a trust fund for herself and her children. She will also co-operate with moves to have arrest warrants, issued against Dr Masry after the abduction of the children, lifted.

In a statement, lawyers for Ms al-Khatib, of Virginia Water, Surrey, said: “The most important thing is that her relationship with her children has been restored and she has been reunited with them.

“She would like to say that the financial aspect of the litigation is, to her, insignificant compared to the resumption of her relationship with her children. She would also like to express her heartfelt thanks to the Court of Appeal, the mediators and her legal teams for all the hard work and determination in bringing about her happy reunion with her children.”

Dr Masry’s representatives said that he was “personally pleased” that his daughters had agreed to make their principal residence with him in Jeddah, where they are attending a private school. They added: “All members of the family can now look forward to a happier and more settled way of life. They will be seeing their mother on a regular basis during their school holidays.”

The couple settled their dispute after being urged by Lord Justice Thorpe, who had said that the children were “imprisoned” by the war between their parents, to enter mediation.

Welcoming the agreement, the judge said: “It is only necessary to stress that this is an outcome which reflects great credit on the generosity of both parents.” The settlement also showed that children can be treated neither “as pawns nor possessions”.

The case was brought to the Court of Appeal in May by Dr Masry who was challenging the 2002 divorce award. Dr Masry told the court in a sworn statement that under Sharia (Islamic law) he was within his rights to take his children to Saudi Arabia and insist that his wife do his bidding.

He said: “In our culture a wife is expected to follow her husband wherever he needs to be. Her duty as a wife is to look after the family and the home.

“I fully understand that to contemporary Western eyes, where the independence of women including married women is taken for granted, the concept may seem antiquated.”

In the High Court divorce battle in 2002, Dr Masry’s lawyers argued that he was insolvent. But the courts found that he owned several properties, 11 cars, and had 27 international bank accounts.

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