Suslyakov case: ten children returned to their homeland in Ukraine from Georgia

Ten children from the Suslyak family have been returned to Ukraine from Georgia.

The mother of the children has been arrested in Georgia in charges of trafficking.

The children flew to Kyiv on a plane chartered by the president of Ukraine, and on the flight they were accompanied by presidential adviser on children’s rights Nikolay Kuleba.

Kuleba says it is necessary to further uncover the details behind this case, as the mother with ten children turned out to be first in Russia, where she had sought asylum, and then in Georgia.

Kuleba says says law enforcement officers were alarmed by the fact that seven children were born from surrogate mothers within one year. Another child died during his stay in Russia.

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Mother of children remains imprisoned in Georgia

The children left for Ukraine late in the evening of June 6 from the Tbilisi airport.

The acting director of the central criminal police department, Mamuka Chelidze and Ukraine decided to hand the childern into Ukrainian custody.

“The accused Yulia Suslyak remains in custody – the investigation continues,” said Mamuka Chelidze.

“We understand that the Georgian authorities have become wary after detecting that six out of ten children are under two years old, and that one of them is a US citizen. Of course, this gave rise to suspicions that perhaps the situation is connected with the sale of children. We also understand that the family’s intentions to move to the occupied territory of Georgia – to Abkhazia, aggravated the suspicions that arose, and it became necessary to sort out what was going on in more detail”, Nikolay Kuleba said.

He expressed gratitude to the Georgian authorities for the care shown for the children.

The case of trafficking

Georgian law enforcement authorities detained Ukrainian citizen Yulia Suslyak on April 25 in Kutaisi. For some time she lived with 10 children in Zugdidi, from where she intended to move to her husband, who is in Abkhazia.

Suslyak was detained after the children got food poisoning and they were transported from the Zugdidi hospital to Kutaisi. Police were alarmed by the fact that the same year of birth was indicated in the documents of several children.

Yulia Suslyak was charged for trafficking underage children, and she was transferred to pre-trial detention. Julia Suslyak pleads not guilty and claims that all the children are her husband’s biological children.

On 5 June, Zulab Todua’s lawyer for Yulia Suslyak said that he had received the opinion of the National Forensic Bureau named after Samkharauli, according to which all ten children brought by his ward to Georgia are her husband’s biological children, and the mother of four of them is Julia Suslyak herself.

For his part, the husband of Yulia Suslyak, who is in Abkhazia, told journalists that he arrived in Abkhazia before the rest of the family to look for work and suitable housing, since he intends to settle in the unrecognized republic. He denies all accusations and claims that they have a “big and friendly family.”