In Moscow, a woman doctor became a defendant in a criminal case on trafficking in children

Doctor of one of the Moscow clinics Alena Druzhinina was detained on suspicion of trafficking in newborn children, informs Novaya Gazeta with reference to its lawyer Kaloi Akhilgov.

According to Akhilgov, in the morning they came to Druzhinina’s home with a search, after which she was left at the IC department, where she was first interrogated as a witness, and then as a suspect.

At the moment, Druzhinina is in a temporary detention center. She was detained for 48 hours.

Two more managers of the clinic in which Druzhinina works are undergoing the same case. According to the investigation, they communicated with surrogate mothers.

A criminal case on trafficking in children was opened on June 23, 2020 after five newborns aged from six days to six months were found in an apartment in the northeast of Moscow. Together with them were two women who, according to them, were caring for the babies.

The babies were found by a nurse of the polyclinic, who carried out the patronage of a newborn child discharged from the maternity hospital. When she came with the child to the right address, she saw four more newborns in the apartment. They had no documents with them.

At the end of June this year, a citizen of China, Liu Jun, was detained in Moscow, whose son was given birth by a surrogate mother. His child is one of five babies found in an apartment in Moscow. Jun was charged with an article about the purchase of a person “in a helpless state” (paragraph “z”, part 2, article 127.1 of the Criminal Code). Subsequently, after several trials, he was found not guilty.