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29 March 2024

UK boy's parents freed from jail in Spain

Published
By Agencies

The British parents arrested for taking their ill son Ashya King from hospital are looking forward to being reunited with him after being freed from jail in Spain.

"We'll go as soon as possible to see my son. We have been dying to see his face for so long," Ashya's father Brett King, 51, told reporters on Tuesday as he and his wife Naghemeh King, 45, left the Soto del Real prison north of Madrid.

A Spanish judge ordered their release after British prosecutors withdrew an extradition order for the couple in a case that prompted an outpouring of public support for them in Britain.

The pair were free to leave Madrid and be reunited with their son, who has a brain tumour and is being treated in a hospital in Malaga, southern Spain.

They were arrested in Spain under a European arrest warrant for taking five-year-old Ashya out of hospital in England after disagreeing with doctors over his cancer treatment.

Prosecutors had said they suspected the parents of "cruelty" but the British Crown Prosecution Service said on Tuesday it was withdrawing the warrant as Ashya had been properly looked after.

A Madrid judge promptly ordered the case to be shelved, judicial sources said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the news on his Twitter feed, saying: "It's important this little boy gets treatment & the love of his family."

Ashya's parents took him out of a hospital in Southampton, southern England, last week, in search of alternative treatment for Ashya.

The Kings are planning to sell their apartment in Malaga to fund proton beam therapy, an alternative to radiotherapy, for Ashya, according to their Spanish lawyer Juan Isidro Fernandez Diaz.

After the family left Britain with their seven children, police applied for an arrest warrant over fears that the condition of Ashya, who has undergone surgery and has to be fed through a special piece of equipment, could deteriorate.

The parents were detained on Saturday but the case prompted an outcry in Britain, where some 130,000 people signed a petition calling for the boy to be reunited with his parents.

Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said it was "not appropriate" to "throw the full force of the law" at Ashya's parents for their actions.

The chief of police in Hampshire, the force which originally applied for the arrest warrant, said that all involved needed to ask what was best for Ashya.

"It is my view as Chief Constable that the situation today is not right," said Andy Marsh in a statement.

"Irrespective of what has happened it is our view that Ashya needs both medical treatment and for his parents to be at his side."

Parents of tumour boy held in Spain as sympathy grows

A Spanish judge on Monday extended the detention of a British couple arrested for taking their seriously ill son out of a hospital in England without medical consent, as sympathy for their situation grew at home.

Brett and Naghemeh King sparked an international manhunt after removing five-year-old Ashya, who has a brain tumour, from hospital last week over their fears that he was not receiving the right care.

The couple were detained on a European arrest warrant near Malaga in southern Spain on Saturday and their son, who only recently underwent surgery and requires special feeding equipment, has been hospitalised in southern Spain.

At a hearing at the High Court in Madrid, the Kings refused to agree to their extradition back to Britain and were ordered to be held in custody for up to 72 hours pending a decision on whether they should be granted bail.

The judge also ordered an urgent medical report into the condition of Ashya, who has a medulloblastoma tumour.

The boy is currently being treated at a nearby children's hospital and is said to be in a stable condition.

In Britain, public concern for Ashya's immediate health has shifted to sympathy for the family's plight as well as anger, particularly on social media, at their pursuit by police.

Police had warned that Ashya's life was in danger if he was not in hospital, but his father and one of his brothers insisted in videos posted to YouTube that he is being cared for properly.

The family's local MEP said the parents should be released immediately to be with their child.

However, the local elected police and crime commissioner, Simon Hayes, defended efforts to bring Ashya home.

"I think if Hampshire Constabulary (police) had ignored the professional medical advice and opinion, then they would have been negligent in their responsibilities to safeguard Ashya in this case and young children in general," he told BBC radio.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who lost his six-year-old disabled son Ivan in 2009, said the priority should be to ensure that Ashya receives the most appropriate medical care.

His spokesman added: "Of course, I am sure that every parent wants to do the best for their child. That is probably the most human of human instincts."

No charges yet

Ashya's father wants his son to undergo proton beam therapy, an alternative to radiotherapy treatment which Britain's state-run National Health Service (NHS) would not provide.

The family was hoping to sell their apartment in Malaga to raise funds for the therapy, which is available in the United States and the Czech Republic, their lawyer said.

"The parents are going to start lawsuits in the UK against the doctors and the hospital that slandered them, and they will make a complaint for false accusations and defamation," said King family lawyer Juan Isidro Fernandez Diaz.

The hospital in Southampton, southern England, that was treating Ashya said it had offered the family access to a second opinion on his treatment and offered to help with organising treatment abroad.

But in a video filmed shortly before his arrest, King, 51, said he was threatened with losing access to his son if he continued to criticise the care provided.

Following the family's flight, the local authority obtained temporary wardship of Ashya -- giving them legal powers over his care - and ordered that he "be presented for medical treatment".

A clinic in the Czech capital Prague, which King had contacted, has now offered to treat Ashya if he is eligible, the BBC reported.

King and his wife, 45, were arrested under a European warrant issued for "an offence of cruelty to a person under the age of 16 years", Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

But prosecutors have yet to decide if the Kings should face charges.

Ashya's grandmother, Patricia King, said his parents and six siblings had not been able to see him since the arrest, saying the situation was "absolutely disgraceful".

"They (the authorities) are the ones who are cruel because they have taken poor little Ashya, who is dying of a brain tumour, and they won't let the parents, my son and daughter-in-law, they won't let them see him at all," she told the BBC.

Why we 'kidnapped' our 5-year-old son with brain tumor from hospital, British parents speak

A critically-ill 5-year-old boy driven to Spain by his parents against doctors' advice is receiving medical treatment for a brain tumor in a Spanish hospital as his parents await extradition to Britain, police said Sunday.

Officers received a phone call late Saturday from a hotel east of Malaga advising that a vehicle fitting the description circulated by police was on its premises.

Both parents were arrested and the boy, Ashya King, was taken to a hospital, a Spanish police spokesman said.

The boy's situation will depend on medical advice, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to be cited by name in the media.

Spanish National Police had published several tweets on its official account giving details of the King family and asking the public to call an emergency number with any information.

"The Kings are currently being held in custody and police have 72 hours to question them before handing them over to a judge, who will begin extradition proceedings," said Chris Shead, of Britain's Hampshire Constabulary.

Shead said the parents were arrested on suspicion of neglect. They were receiving advice from Britain's consular services in Spain and would likely also face questioning by British police who were due to arrive in Malaga on Sunday, he added.

An international search began Thursday for the boy, who has a severe brain tumor, after his parents removed him from a hospital in the southern English city of Southampton in the county of Hampshire.

A European arrest warrant was issued by Interpol, at the request of British police, for the boy's parents, Brett and Naghemeh, both Jehovah's Witnesses. There has been no indication that the parents raised any religious issue about the boy's treatment.

The family had been seen traveling from Britain to France aboard a car ferry and Spanish police had been alerted.

Spanish state television broadcaster TVE said on its website that the minors among the couple's five other children were being looked after by their adult brothers.