US woman sends back 7-year-old Russian boy alone

New York: US authorities are investigating whether an American woman who sent a Russian boy she adopted back to Moscow unaccompanied on a plane can be charged with child abandonment.

The case of seven-year-old Artyom Savelyev has caused international outrage, with the Russian government threatening to suspend all adoptions by US families over the incident. But the local sherriff investigating the case said it was not clear whether the adoptive mother, Torry Hansen, 33, broke any laws.

Hansen put the boy, who she had renamed Justin Hansen, on a plane with a note saying she no longer wanted to parent him because he was violent and had severe psychological problems, according to the Kremlin children's rights office. "You know, you look at it and it's hard to say exactly if a law has been broken here," Bedford county sheriff Randall Boyce said. "This is extremely unusual. I don't think anyone has seen something like this before."

Bob Tuke, a Nashville attorney and member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, said abandonment charges against the family could depend on whether the adoption had been finalised and the boy was a US citizen.

Unclear

A Tennessee health department spokeswoman said the situation was unclear because there was no birth certificate issued for the boy, a step that would indicate he had not yet become a US citizen.

The sheriff said Hansen initially agreed to be interviewed by authorities but changed her mind after talking to a lawyer.

Boyce said it would be difficult to substantiate claims by Russian officials that the mother mistreated the child. "We're here, and the child is in Russia, so it's hard for us to know whether this child has been abused," Boyce said.

The boy, who was adopted in September from the town of Partizansk in eastern Russia, arrived in Moscow on a United Airlines flight on Thursday from Washington, with a written note from Hansen.

‘Last straw'

The note said: "This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues. I was lied to and misled by the Russian orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues ... After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends, and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child."

Anna Orlova, a spokeswoman for Kremlin's Children Rights Commissioner, said she visited the boy and he told her that his mother was "bad", "did not love him" and used to pull his hair. Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, called Hansen's actions "the last straw" in a string of US adoptions gone wrong, including three in which Russian children had died.

Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, also condemned the incident, telling ABC News that the boy "fell into a very bad family". "It is a monstrous deed on the part of his adoptive parents, to take the kid and virtually throw him out with the airplane in the opposite direction and to say ‘I'm sorry I could not cope with it, take everything back' is not only immoral but also against the law," Medvedev said.

Freeze

A freeze on Russian adoptions could affect hundreds of US families. Last year, nearly 1,600 Russian children were adopted in the United States, and more than 60,000 Russian orphans have been successfully adopted there, according to the US National Council For Adoption.

Nancy Hansen, the boy's adoptive grandmother, rejected claims that her daughter had abandoned the child. She said he was watched by a United Airlines flight attendant and that the family paid a man $200 (Dh734) to pick the boy up at the Moscow airport and take him to the Russian education and science ministry. Nancy Hansen of Shelbyville, said the boy was violent and angry with her daughter. "He drew a picture of our house burning down, and he'll tell anybody that he's going to burn our house down with us in it," she said. "It got to be where you feared for your safety. It was terrible."

Should US authorities take legal action against the mother? What do you think about Russia's threat to suspend adoptions by US families?