American held in failed bid to snatch own kids

An American father on a mission to reclaim his young children in Japan was arrested for allegedly abducting them 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 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 police as he tried to enter the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka with the kids, 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.

Custody battles between Japanese mothers and foreign husbands are not uncommon in Japan, which has not yet signed the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. The aim of the convention is to standardize laws to ensure custody decisions can be made by the appropriate courts and to preserve access rights for both parents.

Japan has argued that refusing to sign the Hague Convention has helped shield Japanese women and their children from abusive foreign husbands.

In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent — normally the mother — often wins sole custody of the children.

Taylor said officials at the U.S. Consulate have made two visits to Savoie, who now has American and Japanese lawyers. His Japanese lawyer could not be contacted immediately.