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Ashya King Case: Missing Boy With Brain Tumor Alive in Spain, Parents Arrested

Ashya King, 5, was removed from a British hospital from his parents on Thursday, but needs professional medical care because of a brain tumor.
Image: An undated picture of five-year-old Ashya King
An undated picture of five-year-old Ashya King. British and French authorities were racing against the clock on August 29, 2014 to find a five-year-boy with a brain tumour who officials in France believe was "kidnapped" from hospital by his family. Ashya King's parents took him from a hospital in Southampton, southern England, on August 28 without doctors' consent and boarded a ferry to the French port of Cherbourg the same day, a British police spokesman said. Hampshire Police via AFP - Getty Images

The parents of an ill 5-year-old British boy suffering from a brain tumor are under arrest and the child is receiving medical care at a Spanish hospital after police in that country stopped their car Saturday and ended a furious two-day international manhunt, authorities said.

The ill boy, Ashya King, was found safe with “no visible signs of distress” after police in the Malaga region of Spain pulled over their Hyundai at just before 10 p.m. local time, Hampshire constable Chris Shead told reporters. It is unknown why his parents, Brett King, 51, and Naghemeh King, 45, took the child, whose condition requires complex care that police feared the couple would be unable to safely provide on their own.

"There are no winners in this situation, but thankfully, we have found Ashya,” Shead said at a news conference. “Obviously we now need to speak to those parents to determine exactly what was the motivation behind them taking Ashya.” The parents were arrested on an international warrant for neglect. The parents took the boy from Southampton General Hospital in the U.K. on Thursday, police said, and there were serious concerns for the boy’s life if he went too long without professional treatment.

Image: Naghemeh King and Brett King, the parents of five-year-boy Ashya King in this combination of undated handout photos released by Britain's Hampshire Police on Aug. 29.
Naghemeh King and Brett King, the parents of five-year-boy Ashya King in this combination of undated handout photos released by Britain's Hampshire Police on Aug. 29.HAMPSHIRE POLICE / AFP - Getty Images

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