Prague (AFP) - Ashya King, the five-year-old cancer patient whose parents sparked an international manhunt after they took him from hospital in Britain, arrived in Prague Monday for potentially life-saving treatment after leaving Spain.

"I'm so happy, for one month I've tried to get here and now we've arrived, it's amazing," Ashya's father Brett King told reporters after landing in the Czech capital where his son is scheduled to undergo alternative therapy.

"When you see my son, you'll see it's worthwhile," he said.

Ashya appeared fatigued while attendants loaded him into an ambulance.

He underwent surgery for a brain tumour in his native Britain before his parents removed him from hospital and is now being prepared for proton beam therapy in Prague, a treatment that was unavailable to him at home.

His parents said they took their son abroad to avoid radiotherapy treatment that they believed would turn him into a "vegetable". They argue that such treatment is damaging for a child.

"He's very good, he's got his sense of humour back," King told reporters. He said Ashya would undergo scans Tuesday or Wednesday.

King, who is a Jehovah's Witness, also dispelled concerns expressed by Czech doctors over a possible blood transfusion for Ashya, telling AFP he would not object on religious grounds.

"It's not for a parent to decide this, the hospital staff will decide," he said.

A British judge on Monday formally lifted Ashya's ward of court status in London. Judge Jeremy Baker also described the treatment proposed by parents Brett and Naghmeh as "perfectly reasonable".

The proton beam therapy that Ashya is expected to undergo at Prague's Proton Therapy Centre (PTC) is said to be more precise than traditional radiotherapy, allowing doctors to deliver higher doses of energy to a tumour while sparing surrounding healthy tissue.

Peter Wilson, lead paediatrician at Southampton General Hospital in southeast England where Ashya was treated for his tumour, did not believe the alternative therapy would offer any benefit over radiotherapy treatment.

Story continues

The boy has been in the middle of a legal saga that began when his desperate parents whisked him away from the Southampton hospital against doctors' advice on August 28.

That triggered a cross-border manhunt that saw the parents jailed for four days in Spain before being freed and emotionally reunited with Ashya at his bedside in Malaga's Maternity and Children's Hospital.

The case received widespread British coverage in the British media, with public opinion shifting from outrage to sympathy for his parents.

British prosecutors at first suspected them of cruelty but later dropped the case, acknowledging that Ashya had been properly cared for.

Before moving him from hospital in Spain they had to wait for a British court to give up its legal custody of Ashya, which had been imposed after they were detained.





- Proton beams -





The Proton Therapy Centre (PTC) in Prague said its experts would fast-track their procedures for the high-profile patient.

"He will be transferred by ambulance to our oncology and haematology clinic for initial tests," Miloslav Ludvik, director of the Prague hospital, told journalists before Ashya arrived.

Jan Stary, head of the children's haematology and oncology clinic, said Ashya could begin to receive the therapy next week at the earliest.

He estimated that Ashya had a 70-percent chance of survival if all the treatment went well.

According to the PTC, the procedure costs about 1.8 million kroner (65,000 euros, $84,000) in the Czech Republic, compared with 108,000 euros in the United States.

The Kings have said they will sell a home they own in Malaga to fund Ashya's treatment. Donations are also reported to have flooded in from well-wishers.

The couple's legal troubles prompted an outpouring of public support in Britain, where tens of thousands of people signed a petition calling for the boy to be reunited with his parents.

The case even gained the attention of Prime Minister David Cameron, who upon learning that the case against the Kings had been dropped, tweeted: "It's important this little boy gets treatment and the love of his family."