Woman ‘abducted son ten years ago’

7 April 2004

HUESCA – A Spanish woman was accused of abducting her son ten years ago after she fled her marriage in the United States, it was reported Wednesday.

Executing a court order backing up the American father’s efforts to recover the boy, Interpol agents seized the 10-year-old at a religious school in Huesca, in north-east  Spain.

The mother, identified only as ‘Sonia’, had been in hiding for several years, living between the cities of Zaragoza and Huesca.

She left the United States with her 18-month-old son following her separation from the boy’s father, a member of the US military that she met in Spain.

The woman gave the court Tuesday psychological reports on the child and documents she said back up her allegations of abuse at the hands of her husband.

The judge declined to file charges at the time and sent the woman home to await further court action.

The boy, whom Spanish authorities took into their custody on Sunday, returned to school on Tuesday.

Outside the courthouse, the boy’s mother acknowledged that she lived in hiding most of the time since leaving her husband.

When she fled the United States, she failed to appear in a California court to answer to the divorce and custody suits filed by her husband, who was then granted sole custody of the child.

She said she was “desperate”, as several Spanish courts had ordered that the boy should be returned to his father.

Her husband worked out his request for the boy’s repatriation through the US Embassy in Spain, in keeping with the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

  Subject: Spanish news