A Washington state father is pleading with Korean authorities for the return of his young son, whose non-custodial mother is wanted in the United States for allegedly kidnapping the child abroad and disobeying court orders from both countries to return him.
Bryan Sung, now 7, was just 3 years old when his mother, Min Jung Cho, 42, allegedly took him to his native South Korea in June 2019.
Bryan’s father, Dr. Jay Sung, 43, says he has won court battles both in the United States and abroad, but remains isolated from his son, whom he has not been able to see for more than half his life. .
“Korea did nothing to protect [Bryan]“The orthodontist told Fox News Digital. “They should send the American citizen back to his home, where the law can be enforced and he can be protected.”
While Sung was initially granted full custody, the judge overseeing their divorce allowed each parent to take Bryan to Korea for up to three weeks a year.
Cho took Bryan to South Korea and, on the last day of the scheduled trip, his lawyer contacted Sung and told him the boy would not be returned to the United States, he said.
A Washington state father is pleading with Korean authorities for the return of his young son, whose non-custodial mother is wanted in the United States for allegedly kidnapping the child abroad. Bring backbryan / Facebook
Sung, who at the time had no confirmation of her son’s actual whereabouts, filed a missing person’s report in Redmond, Washington.
South Korean police eventually located Bryan at his maternal grandmother’s house, but Sung says he was told the case should be resolved in civil court.
Sung was born in South Korea but spent much of his childhood in Ohio.
He served in the South Korean military and returned to the United States to study dentistry at UCLA. He is now an orthodontist in Washington and he and his son are American citizens.
Min Jung Cho, 42, allegedly took her son to South Korea in June 2019. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Cho is not, and his permanent residency was revoked after he failed to return for more than a year, Sung said.
An arrest warrant for Cho in Washington state is in effect as of April 20, 2020, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Sung filed a petition under the Hague Convention, which governs child abductions, trafficking and international adoptions in 2019, he said.
During a process that lasted years, the court ruled in his favor and Cho subsequently exhausted his appeals. But she refused to hand over the child, her father said.
The boy’s father, Dr. Jay Sung, says he has won court battles both in the United States and abroad, but remains isolated from his son. Bring backbryan / Facebook
While Korean courts have repeatedly sided with Sung, he said the country’s law has a loophole that prevents authorities from forcibly taking a child.
Now, Sung says he is the only legal guardian recognized by both countries, but he is helpless as Korean authorities have refused to enforce a court’s demand that the boy be sent home to his father.
They even arrested Cho twice and fined her, she said, but they did not return her son.
Sung launched a social media campaign demanding that the South Korean government do more to return his son and held a one-man protest outside the Korean consulate in Seattle.
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Sung’s plight has been supported by his local congresswoman, Rep. Kim Schrier, as well as the State Department and the FBI.
Over the past few years, the State Department has reprimanded South Korea for a “pattern of non-compliance” with the Convention due to the performance of the country’s law enforcement services in court-ordered returns.
“Specifically, [Republic of Korea] “Law enforcement authorities regularly failed to enforce return orders in abduction cases,” reads the State Department’s 2023 Action Report on International Child Abduction. “As a result of this failure, 50 per cent of applications for the return of children abducted under the Convention remained unresolved for more than 12 months.”
However, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that while their South Korean counterparts are cooperating on Bryan’s case, American diplomats have raised issues with their Korean counterparts over the country’s lengthy return process.
“With regard to Dr. Sung’s case and other similar cases, we have raised this issue many times with ROK officials in Washington and Seoul and have expressed concern about the country’s lengthy judicial procedures and lack of implementation of the Convention. of The Hague on theft. orders,” the spokesperson said.
A spokesman for the FBI office in Seattle said the office was given jurisdiction over certain child abduction cases in the “Lindbergh Act” of 1932, also known as the Federal Kidnapping Act, following the kidnapping of the famous aviator’s two-year-old son. Charles Lindbergh. .
The 43-year-old father says he hasn’t been able to see for more than half of the boy’s life. Bring backbryan / Facebook
“Child abduction cases can be time-consuming and also require coordination with other law enforcement agencies, both inside and outside the United States, and with our legal offices, which promote the FBI’s mission abroad,” he said.
The average time to resolve a child abduction in South Korea is just under three years, according to the State Department’s Action Report.
If he doesn’t return in April, Bryan will have been gone for five years.
Even South Korean lawmakers held hearings on the issue and determined that their system is flawed and began drafting reforms, Sung said.
If he doesn’t return by April, Dr. Jay Sung won’t have seen his son for five years. Bring backbryan / Facebook
Korean officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While the case is reminiscent of the 2000 operation to return Cuban shipwreck survivor Elián González to his father, Sung disputed the idea that Korean police would need to send a SWAT team to rescue his son.
“If that is really necessary and it is the only way to return the child, I am not against it,” he told Fox News Digital. “But at the same time, using ‘force’ on the child doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to do it in a very traumatic way. “Sometimes you need force: if the child doesn’t want to go to school, sometimes you have to use force to get him into the car.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn