'Snatched' Newborn Returned To Mother, Woman Arrested

ALMATY -- A woman has been arrested for allegedly snatching a newborn baby boy from a hospital in the Kazakh city of Almaty, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.

Baby Ratmir was found and returned to his mother on November 23, three days after he vanished from his mother's hospital room in Almaty's Maternity House No. 1.

Ratmir, who was born on November 17, disappeared shortly before he and his mother -- Svetlana Shashkova -- were to leave the hospital. Shashkova was asleep in the hospital room with her son when he was taken.

Shashkova's friend, Anna Shakhvorostova, told journalists that the boy was returned to his mother on the morning of November 23.

The Interior Ministry's press service said a 25-year-old woman was arrested and charged with kidnapping. Police found the boy in the suspect's apartment. The Interior Ministry press service said the woman was not a hospital employee but had put on hospital clothes to appear as if she was a member of the staff in order to abduct the baby.

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