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Smuggled baby lands British couple in Romanian jail

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The Washington Times

Police speculate case is part of larger trafficking ring

Author: Peter Humphrey; REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

BUCHAREST, Romania - A British couple have been charged with attempting to smuggle a 5-month-old baby girl out of the country, and they are unlikely to be freed on bail.

Police spokesman Col. Dan Secrieru said the pair were charged with violating border and adoption laws.

The couple, identified by a British official as Adrian and Bernadette Mooney from Berkshire, England, are being held in cells at Bucharest police headquarters.

Police said last week that in addition to the two Britons, three Romanians were under arrest on suspicion of baby trafficking, and that the net might be cast wider.

"There is a possibility that if they apply for bail it might not be allowed because of the fact that Romanians are also involved in the case and that there might be a network involved," Col. Secrieru said.

The case underlines the fate of tens of thousands of unwanted Romanian infants.

The Mooneys were detained two weeks ago after a 5-month-old baby girl without travel documents was found in a basket in their car as they were leaving Romania at Bors, on the border with Hungary.

Since the 1989 uprising that brought down communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania has revealed a host of social problems involving children. Large numbers of infants are in orphanages, and older children are living on the streets.

The existence of these unwanted youngsters, especially babies, has attracted Westerners seeking to adopt them. From December 1989 to July 1991, foreigners adopted 7,326 babies in Romania legally.

A law introduced in 1992 made legal adoption much more difficult.

In a sign that the case of the two arrested Britons is not isolated, the Daily Mirror newspaper of London said a 16-year-old Romanian mother offered its reporter a 9-month-old baby for $17,260 last Wednesday.

She told the paper she wanted to sell her child because she had nothing to offer it, adding that her sister had already had an offer for her 3-month-old son and was considering it.

It quoted a father of four children from a poor district as saying selling babies is common in Romania.

Hundreds of "street children" are homeless in major Romanian cities. In Bucharest they live in the sewers around the train station, begging for food or money, and become addicted to a solvent called aurolac inhaled from plastic bags.

1994 Jul 19