UK deputy leader criticizes ill boy case
By Associated Press
Sep 2, 2014 4:44 AM CDT
This is a an undated handout file photo issued by Hampshire Police on Monday Sept. 1, 2014 of Ashya King, who has a brain tumour and was taken by his parents from hospital without the consent of his doctors. Critically-ill 5-year-old boy Ashya King driven to Spain by his parents, Brett and Naghemeh,...   (Associated Press)

LONDON (AP) — U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg says it is inappropriate to throw the full weight of the law at a family who spirited their ill 5-year-old child out of the country in order for him to receive a revolutionary type of radiation therapy for a brain tumor.

Clegg told the BBC on Tuesday that his heart goes out to Brett and Naghemeh King.

The couple took their son, Ashya, out of Southampton General Hospital last week and traveled to Spain, where they planned to sell a property they own to pay for proton beam radiation therapy. The couple was arrested on a British warrant, and they are fighting extradition.

Clegg says as far as he can make out, the family was trying to do the best it could for Ashya.

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