CAIRO: The South Cairo Criminal Court sentenced 11 people involved in a baby purchase plot to two to five years in jail Thursday.
The group was found guilty of “human trafficking through buying and selling four newly born babies and smuggling them outside the country to sell them to foreigners, Chancellor Al-Mohammadi Qunsua, head of the South Cairo Criminal Court, said.
Mariam Ragheb Rezk Allah, who runs an orphanage; George Saed Louis Ghali, a surgeon; and Gamil Khalil Bekheit, were all slammed a five-year jail sentence with labor and a LE 100,000 fine.
Iris Nabil Abdel Meseih Botrous and her husband Louis Andraous along with Suzanne Hagolf, Medhat Metias and Ashraf Hassan Moustafa were sentenced to two years in jail with labor.
The court also handed down the same two-year sentence to Raafat Atallah, Josephine Al-Kess Matah Gerges, and Atef Roushdy Amin Hana, who were all at large.
Botrous, Andraous, Atallah and Gerges were also fined LE 100,000.
The forged passports and identification papers that were used to smuggle the babies outside Egypt will remain in the court’s possession and will be referred to a specialized court to examine the case.
The stolen babies’ families filed lawsuits demanding compensation, but the court said those cases will also be referred to a specialized court.
