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The Investigative Committee opens case over negligence in Kuzmin brothers adoption

One of the boys died in a U.S. foster family

MOSCOW, March 19 (Itar-Tass) – The Investigative Committee /SK/ opened a criminal case over negligence in the adoption of the Kuzmin brothers by U.S. citizens. Maxim Kuzmin, 3, later died in a foster family in Texas, United States.

"Pskov Region investigators opened a criminal case over negligence in drawing the documents on the adoption of the Kuzmin brothers by U.S. citizens, under Article 293, Part 1," SK spokesman Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

"It was opened by the results of a procedural check, which exposed possible negligence during the drawing of the adoption documents for brothers Maxim and Kirill Kuzmin. The social services did not submit complete information about the boys' biological parents to the court which reviewed the issue of adoption by U.S. citizens," Markin said.

The paternal grandmother was interested in the boys' health and development and possibility to visit them at the orphanage. The information was available to officials from the main department for social protection of Pskov region population, as well as to territorial guardianship bodies of the Pechora and Gdov districts of the Pskov region, but it never reached the court /which allowed adoption - eds Itar-Tass/.

The investigators will give a legal evaluation of the improper performance of duties by social services' officials when drawing the documents on the children' relatives refusal to accept guardianship and on the absence of Russian citizens who would adopt the boys," Markin said.

In this situation, the court was unable to examine all the circumstances of the case with respect to ensuring the Kuzmin brothers' right to live and be educated in a Russian family, and had to pass the decision to hand over the children to a U.S. foster family, on the strength of the available data.

The investigators will carry out a probe to ascertain all the circumstances of the adoption procedure.

Maxim Kuzmin and his two-year-old brother Kirill were adopted by the Shatto couple from the Pechora-based orphanage late last year. They boy died in a Texas hospital on January 21, 2013. His foster mother claimed she had found him unconscious on the playground near her house where he had been playing within his younger brother. She said she had promptly called an ambulance.

Forensic experts said Maxim had died in an accident due to a lethal stomach injury caused by a blunt object.

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