TOKYO -- An American father, on a mission to reclaim his young children in Japan, was arrested over their alleged abduction while they were walking to school with his ex-wife, officials said Wednesday.
Christopher John Savoie snatched his two children _ an 8-year-old boy and 6-year-old girl _ by force early Monday in the southern city of Fukuoka, said Akira Naraki, a police spokesman in the city.
"He shoved them into a car and drove away," Naraki said.
Savoie, 38, was arrested by Japanese police as he tried to enter the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka with his two children, said Tracy Taylor, a spokeswoman at the consulate.
He was arrested after his ex-wife, Noriko, alerted the police.
The divorced couple and the two children were living in Tennessee, but Noriko Savoie came to Japan with the two children in August without informing her ex-husband, Taylor said.
Emotional legal battles often erupt between Japanese mothers and their foreign husbands over the custody of their children.
Japan has yet to sign the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, which seeks to standardize laws among participating countries to ensure that custody decisions can be made by appropriate courts and protect the rights of access of both parents to their children.
Japan has argued that refusing to sign the Hague Convention helped shield Japanese women and their children fleeing from abusive foreign husbands.
In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent often gets a sole custody of their children _ normally the mother.
Taylor said U.S. Consulate officials have twice visited Savoie, who now has American and Japanese lawyers. His Japanese lawyer could not be contacted immediately.
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