Austell Man to Reunite with Daughters Following Costa Rican Court Ruling

It may be a month after Father's Day, but one Austell man may receive the best present a father can get: his daughters back after a year-long international custody battle.

Christopher Camacho thought his wife, a native Costa Rican, was taking their  daughters to Costa Rica for a vacation in June 2011. However, Lucrecia Ramirez Camacho decided she and the girls were not returning home and informed her husband of her decision in a phone conversation, reports the Marietta Daily Journal.

During the last year, Chris Camacho never saw his daughters, 6-year-old Elena and 10-year-old Isabella.

On Wednesday afternoon, a Costa Rican trial court ordered the girls to be brought home to Georgia and ruled that there was no evidence to support Lucrecia Camacho's claim of family violence.

According to the Hague Abduction Convention, if there is an objection filed within a year of a child's removal, then the child must be returned home.

Chris Camacho's attorney Michael Manely said thousands of cases are surfacing where American children are being abducted by foreign-born children.

Chris Camacho hopes his case will have a happy ending.

"I'll be very happy when they're back, and they're here, and I hold them and see them and touch them,” Chris Camacho said in a report by Channel 2 Action news.

According to the MDJ, it is unclear whether Chris Camacho will travel to Costa Rica to retrieve his daughters or if his estranged wife will travel to the U.S. to bring them home.

Camacho's wife had until Monday, July 2, to appeal the court's decision in Costa Rica's highest family court, the Tribunal de Familia.