Lawsuit unites a Montreal family, a Baghdad embassy and the French government in a complicated drama

In the shaded garden of their Baghdad home, the Lawee family ate fresh dates straight off the palm trees. They fished in the Tigris River and strolled to the country club with tennis rackets under their arms. Brothers Ezra and Khedouri owned the General Motors concession for a section of the Middle East and the house they built together was suitably palatial, with columns and fountains and a swimming pool, a cook and a driver, and enough bedrooms to sleep 12. Looking back, the family would come to think of this era as a kind of lost Eden.