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Authorities have dropped the case against a Tennessee father arrested in Japan when he snatched his children from his ex-wife, the man's spokesman said Thursday.
Christopher Savoie was arrested Sept. 30 in Fukuoka, Japan, as he tried to enter the U.S. Consulate with his 9-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter. Ex-wife Noriko Savoie had violated a U.S. court custody decision by taking the children from Franklin, Tenn., to her native Japan a month earlier.
Christopher Savoie, who is back in the U.S., was told Japanese authorities are closing the case, said Savoie's spokesman Wes Yoder.
In a statement, Savoie said he was not surprised the case had been dropped. He said that if Japanese authorities had reason to indict him they would have while he was in custody.
After the mother took the children to Japan, a Tennessee court issued a warrant for her arrest and gave the father full custody. That order has no effect because Japan hasn't signed an international treaty governing child abduction.
Even so, Savoie said, he still had joint custody of the children in Japan when he was arrested. The children are still in that country, Yoder said.
Savoie's arrest has brought international attention to child custody issues in Japan. The country's law allows only one divorced parent as custodian -- almost always the mother -- leaving many fathers without access to their children until they are grown.
In a growing number of custody cases, Japanese mothers bring their children back to their native country and refuse to let their foreign ex-husbands visit.
Last month, ambassadors from the U.S. and seven other countries urged Japan to sign the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. The convention seeks to ensure that custody decisions are made by the courts in the country where the children originally lived and that the rights of access of both parents are protected.
Yoder said Savoie hopes Japan will sign the convention and grant him access to the children.
