Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Russia Launches Criminal Probe into US Death of Adopted Boy

Local authorities in Russia's Pskov Region have launched a criminal investigation into the alleged negligence in the processing of adoption documents of Maxim Kuzmin (renamed Max Alan Shatto), whose recent death in the US provoked an enormous outcry in his home country, the Investigative Committee reported Tuesday. "The social services failed to provide full information on the biological parents of the boys (Maxim and his brother) to the court that was considering his adoption by US parents," the committee said in a statement. Specifically, according to the committee, one of the children's grandmothers was interested in remaining in touch with and visiting the boys, but this information was not relayed to the court. Investigators will also assess the actions of the officials who were responsible for checking the documents that refused to grant custody of the child to the relatives of their biological parents, or to search for adoptive parents in Russia. Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov announced the death of the boy on February 18. He tweeted that the child had been given powerful "psychotropic substances," and he was badly beaten before he died in a hospital on January 21. On March 1, the Texas authorities announced that the boy's death was not criminal based on the autopsy results. The four doctors who reviewed the results ruled the death accidental.

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