BISHKEK, November 28 (RIA Novosti) – The head of a care institute for people with mental disabilities in Kyrgyzstan has been charged with selling patients to a street beggar gang, local prosecutors said Thursday.
A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said that the official faked paperwork allowing the release of two female patients for $500.
The victims, aged 24 and 47, were picked up by people posing as relatives and flown to Moscow, where they were to be forced into begging, the spokesman said.
According to earlier media reports, the victims and their handler were intercepted at an airport in Moscow in October.
The unnamed head of the care facility was reported to be under investigation at the time.
He has now been arrested and formally charged with human trafficking and document forgery.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Investigators were trying to establish whether more patients of the facility were sold into slavery, the prosecutors said.
