NAIROBI, Kenya – Investigators are focusing on Kenya’s main maternity hospital, police said Wednesday, following allegations that some parents were told their newborns had died but the babies were really stolen by an international child trafficking ring.
Five people, including the wife of a London-based Kenyan preacher, were released on bail Wednesday after pleading innocent to charges involving two infants. Self-proclaimed archbishop Gilbert Deya had claimed the two were among children born as the result of miracles he performed on infertile women.
One of the babies was stolen in February from Nairobi’s Pumwani Maternity Hospital and “it is the center of our investigations,” police spokesman Jaspher Ombati said. No hospital employee has been charged so far.
Since the five suspects were detained last month, many couples have come forward seeking to claim the 20 children found with the suspects, saying their children disappeared from the hospital, Ombati told The Associated Press. DNA tests found that at least 17 of the children were not related to the adults arrested, authorities said.
Deya is a prime suspect in the case, Ombati added, noting the preacher blessed infertile or post-menopausal women and sent them to Kenya purportedly to give birth. The women claimed to have delivered babies in as little as two months and then applied to British authorities to take them back to London, he said.
In London, Deya said Wednesday that all allegations against him were false. “What is happening is a setup with the Kenyan authorities and the Church of England here in the U.K. … because they are jealous of what I’ve done,” said Deya, who has a home in Nairobi but has been preaching in Britain since 1996.
A doctor, Katini Nzau-Ombaka, said there had been allegations of babies being stolen from Pumwani hospital for years but past investigations failed to uncover any problems.
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