An American father – Christopher Savoie -was recently released from a Japanese prison after he alleged attempted to take his children from his ex-wife.

Savoie and his ex-wife Noriko Savoie were married 14 years when they decided to file for divorce in January 2009 due to adulterous circumstances. He remarried the next month.

The couple lived in Japan, but moved to the United States before their divorce. Both parents are citizens of the United States and Japan. His ex-wife was initially awarded child custody providing she resided in the U.S. with the children. He had visitation rights.

About a month after the divorce, Christopher had received an e-mail from Noriko stating, “It’s very difficult to watch [the] kids becoming American and losing Japanese identity. I am at the edge of the cliff. I cannot hold it anymore if you keep bothering me.”

Christopher suspected she’d take the children and pleaded with Judge James G. Martin III to give him custody in fear he would not see his children again. The judge advised Noriko if she moved the children to Japan she would lose her alimony and education funds awarded to her in the divorce.

The judge did however allow her to travel with the children to Japan because he did not believe she was a flight risk. After the trip – she returned back home with the children.

Christopher later learned that Noriko took the children to Japan when they were supposed to start school. He then filed a suit against his ex for full child custody and won, but this did not mean it would be enforced in Japan, where the mother usually retains full custody of the children.

He then made the trip to Japan to get his children back. He took his two children – 8-year-old Isaac and 6-year-old Rebecca on Sept 28 as his ex-wife walked them to school in the rural town of Yanagawa.

He traveled with his kids to the nearest U.S. consulate in Fukuoka in attempt to obtain passports for the children. He was allegedly screaming at the guards to let him in when the Japanese police arrived and arrested him.

Now there are a few issues standing in Christopher’s way of getting back his children. Japan did not agree to a 1980’s Hague Convention law which handles international child abduction.

Also Japanese law focuses on sole custody divorces so one parent has custody of the children, which is usually the mother.

According to the US State Department, in many cases, “foreign parents have little luck in regaining custody.”

Also in Japan the couple is still considered married since they never actually got divorced in the country according to police officials.

Authorities have put the charges of child kidnapping on hold for the time being.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 8:25 am and is filed under Divorce News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.