Christopher Savoie Japanese Child Abduction Story

Christopher Savoie is the latest person to become involved in a parental abduction case between a foreign person and a Japanese person. Christopher Savoie is an American man who was married to and had two children with a Japanese woman named Noriko Savoie. They were married in America, had their kids in America and lived in Tennessee. After the divorce, Noriko Savoie became depressed and often talked about how much she wanted to go back to Japan. She threatened to take the children to Japan a number of times, including sending an email in which she wrote, "I am on the edge of a cliff. I am having more difficulty staying here. It's very hard to watch [the] kids becoming American and losing [their] Japanese identity." Christopher Savoie became alarmed. He had a good reason to be alarmed, because parental abduction is not a crime in Japan. Once the abducted children reach Japanese soil, there is nothing that the foreign parent can do to get them back. When Noriko Savoie tried to get passports made for the American children, Christopher went to court to ask the judge to prevent the children from being taken to a country that doesn’t recognize Hague Convention international child abduction laws. His request was denied, and sure enough, what he feared would happen actually happened. His children were abducted to Japan by his ex-wife Noriko Savoie. When Noriko Savoie got the passports for her children, Isaac (8) and Rebecca (6), she took them to Japan for a summer vacation. Everything seemed fine, and she brought them back to America at the scheduled time. What Christopher Savoie didn’t realize was that during the summer vacation, Noriko had enrolled her children to start Japanese school and had made all the other necessary preparations for her children to move to Japan permanently. One week after getting back to America, the children were abducted by Noriko while they were walking on their way to their first day of school. That day, Christopher Savoie got a call at work from the elementary school, saying that his children never arrived at school. Japan is one of the few developed countries not to recognize the Hague Convention bill on international child abduction that was passed in 1980. Once the children get to Japan, they are beyond Hague Convention law. Basically, the Japanese government sanctions what essentially amounts to kidnapping. Noriko Savoie is wanted by police in America for child abduction, but in Japan, what she did isn’t seen as a crime.

On the contrary, it is Christopher Savoie who now sits in a Japanese jail.

More about the Christopher Savoie Japan story...

EDIT - NEW INFORMATION WAS RELEASED.
Some new facts about the case have come to light that make Christopher Savoie look like a terrible person. It turns out that the kids were not born and raised in America. They were born and raised in Japan. Christopher Savoie may even actually have a Japanese passport. He went to university and lived his life in Japan. He and his wife Noriko Savoie were estranged for years before Christopher decided to move back to America. When he moved back to America, he rekindled a romance with his old girlfriend (his new blonde wife who is always on the TV and should stop giving so many TV interviews since she’s not really a part of this) and then apparently tricked Noriko to move to America and start over with him. When Noriko arrived, he served her with divorce papers and was able to get dual custody of the kids. He knew that if they had divorced in Japan, he would not be able to have custody of the kids. Noriko became so upset that she later abducted the kids and you know what happened.

June 08 – Noriko comes to America with kids.
Before October 08 – Husband begins divorce proceedings. Fearing that the wife would return to Japan has a Tennessee court confiscate the passports of the two kids.
January 09 – Divorce finalized. Custody agreement states that she must live and raise her children (who were born and raised to this point in Japan) in Franklin, Tennessee. (WTF?)
February 09 – Wife begins citing difficulty adapting to life in America. Husband uses her complaints in effort to gain sole custody and is denied.
April 09 – Passports returned to kids.
Summer 09 – Japan vacation.
August 09 – Wife comes back to America shortly and then escapes back to Japan with kids.

They both sound completely selfish and I only feel sorry for the children.
What a horrible story.