MOSCOW, October 12 (RAPSI) – A court in the Moscow Region is to hear a claim of a child protection service against a district Moscow Civil Registry Office seeking the annulment of the birth certificates issued to surrogate children as concerns registration of Filipino nationals as their genetic parents, the foreigners’ lawyer Igor Trunov informs RAPSI on Monday.

This unprecedented claim of the guardianship authorities, as the lawyer defines it, seeks, he alleges, to terminate the custody of the parents even without participation of their legal representative in the case, what significantly infringes on their parental rights.

The claimant, Trunov says, bases its allegations on the fact that the parents have failed to petition it to transfer the babies in their custody, whereas, as the lawyer insists, they have unsuccessfully sought access to their children since January 2020. Moreover, the guardianship authorities allege there are no documents confirming the relationship of the babies and their parents, although such documents were attached to the petition. Trunov intends to challenge this decision in court and to appeal against, as he believes, unlawful actions of the Vidnovskaya Hospital.

The case is to be heard by Vidnovsky Town Court, located in the Moscow Region, the respondent is the Khamovnichesky District Civil Registry Office in Moscow.

Alleged surrogate children of the Filipino pair were found in an apartment in the Moscow Region this January. Investigators opened a case over trafficking in children; the babies were transferred to an orphanage.

In January, law enforcement officers found a body of a dead newborn boy in a flat in the Moscow Region’s town of Odintsovo. There were also three other kids there along with a nurse. Investigators believe surrogate mothers gave birth to the children to transfer them later to foreign parents.

This July, a court detained CEO of the European Surrogacy Center Vladislav Melnikov in this case. The man will stay detained until September 14.

In total, seven people involved in the case are in detention. One more accused woman is under house arrest.