Tom Powell
THE parents of Ashya King have been released from their Madrid prison and are on their way to Malaga to see their extremely ill son.
Brett and Naghmeh King were released from Soto de Real prison after prosecutors in London cancelled a European arrest warrant.
They also said the couple would face no charges.
A Spanish judge acted quickly to authorise their release after the warrant was dropped, amid public uproar.
The parents, who are Jehovah’s witnesses, have not seen their son since the arrest at a hostel in Benajarafe on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the rest of the siblings have returned to stay at the stunning seafront apartment that they have owned on the Costa del Sol for more than ten years.
Their family car, a Hyundai, was this morning parked up out the front of their luxury coastal urbanisation, near Estepona. The boot was visibly full of bags.
They had spent the previous night staying in a nearby urbanisation in the small municipality of Casares, where they lived for a decade.
The two oldest brothers, Danny and Naveed, were seen with their younger siblings by neighbours yesterday playing by the pool and unpacking the car.
According to one, they this morning went to visit their five-year-old brother Ashya in the Malaga hospital where he is under police guard.
Brett King, 51, and his wife Naghmeh, 45, fled to Spain with Ashya, who has a brain tumour, leaving Southampton general hospital without consent.
They were found by police and arrested on Saturday night after a Europe-wide hunt following doctors’ claims his life was in danger.
His father claimed they took him out of the hospital in England because they wanted him to have proton beam therapy, a specific treatment which was not available in the UK.
Brett King appeared on a 10-minute YouTube video explaining why the family took Ashya from the hospital and asked the police to ‘call off this ridiculous chase’.
Interpol had sent out a missing persons alert to its 190 member countries as concerns for the boy’s welfare grew since he was removed from hospital by his parents on Thursday, August 28.
An online petition demanding the release of the Kings has gathered more than 186,000 signatures.
His older brother Naveed has posted a YouTube video arguing that the family did care properly for Ashya while travelling.
