SOTO DEL REAL, Spain — The British parents who took their critically ill child for treatment abroad without doctors' consent were released from custody in Spain on Tuesday after authorities in the United Kingdom dropped charges of child cruelty against them. The National Court in Madrid said in a statement that a judge ordered the couple's immediate release after receiving official notification from Britain that authorities there were no longer seeking their extradition to answer charges. Their 5-year-old son Ashya, who has a severe brain tumor, has been cared for in a hospital in Malaga, 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Madrid while they were incarcerated.
Brett and Naghemeh King were met by two cars as they left the Soto del Real prison, about 40 kilometers (24 miles) outside Madrid, after dark Tuesday. The parents were sent to the prison on Monday after a judge ruled they should be held while a Madrid court considered Britain's extradition request, which was revoked Tuesday. The parents were pursued by police after they took Ashya out of a hospital in southern England against doctors' advice and traveled to Spain, where they planned to sell a property to pay for proton beam radiation therapy in the Czech Republic or the U.S. Brett King on Tuesday declined to comment on their treatment plans for Ashya.
IN-DEPTH
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