US couple abandon adopted Russian boy

Moscow, April 9 (IANS/RIA Novosti) An American couple allegedly abandoned an eight-year-old Russian boy they had adopted and sent him back to Russia, a top official has said.

The boy arrived in Moscow and is now in the care of authorities, Pavel Astakhov, ombudsman for child rights said Thursday.

“A message arrived saying that an eight-year boy, who does not speak Russian but understands Russian, has flown in from America. He had a note in which his adoptive parents said they had abandoned him and asked that the boy be taken back,” Astakhov said.

The boy was at a police station in Moscow and will be taken to a hospital for medical examination, he said.

There have been controversies across both countries in recent times regarding adoption of Russian children by American couples, following the death of two children in separate incidents in Virginia.

In 2006, American citizen Peggy Sue Hilt was sentenced to 25 years in prison for beating to death a two-year-old girl from Siberia she had adopted.

In 2008, 21-month-old Chase, born Dmitry Yakovlev, died of heatstroke after his adoptive father, Miles Harrison, 49, left him in the car for nine hours in the sun.

Harrison was, however, acquitted of involuntary manslaughter after a court accepted that he had forgotten that the boy was in the car and driven to his office without dropping him at the daycare centre.

–IANS/RIA Novosti