CUBA says it will turn over to the US a Florida couple who allegedly kidnapped their own children from the mother's parents and fled by boat to Havana, ending days of drama that evoked memories of the Elian Gonzalez custody battle of more than a decade ago.
Foreign ministry official Johana Tablada told The Associated Press in a written statement on Tuesday that Cuba had informed US authorities of the country's decision to turn over Joshua Michael Hakken, his wife Sharyn, and their two young boys.
Tablada said the foreign ministry had informed US diplomats on the island "of the Cuban government's willingness to turn over ... US citizens Joshua Michael Hakken, his wife Sharyn Patricia and their two minor sons".
She said Cuba tipped the State Department off to the Hakkens' presence on Sunday and that from that moment "diplomatic contact has been exchanged and a professional and constant communication has been maintained".
US authorities say Hakken kidnapped his sons, four-year-old Cole and two-year-old Chase, from his mother-in-law's house north of Tampa. The boys' maternal grandparents had been granted permanent custody of the boys last week.
Hakken lost custody of his sons last year after a drug possession arrest in Louisiana and later tried to take the children from a foster home at gunpoint, authorities said.
According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Hakken entered his mother-in-law's Florida house last Wednesday, tied her up and fled with his sons. Federal, state and local authorities searched by air and sea for a boat Hakken had recently bought. The truck Hakken, his wife and the boys had been travelling in was found on Thursday, abandoned in Madeira Beach, Florida.
The family's flight to Cuba harkened back to the 1999 child custody case involving Elian Gonzalez, though unlike Gonzalez, the Hakkens had no apparent ties to the island.
In 1999, five-year-old Gonzalez was found clinging to an inner tube off Florida after his mother and others drowned while fleeing Cuba. The boy was taken to Miami to live with relatives, but his father in Cuba demanded the boy be sent back.
US courts ultimately ruled Gonzalez should be sent back, though his Miami relatives refused to return him. In April 2000, US federal agents raided the family's home and he was returned to Cuba soon after.
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