Prague - Czech police Thursday closed their investigation
into the case in which two newborn girls were swapped in a Czech
hospital nearly 11 months ago, CTK news agency reported.
The police confirmed that hospital employees must have swapped the
babies within five hours after the girls were born in early morning on
December 9, 2006.
After birth, nurses carried the babies away from their mothers'
rooms to bathe them. Several hours later they returned the babies -
but to the wrong parents.
The police did not find out who actually swapped the newborns in
the paediatric ward and said that the mix-up could be declared as
neither a crime nor as a misdemeanor.
The lawyer for the families however insists that several crimes
were committed and plans to file a complaint against the police
decision, CTK reported.
The hospital in the town of Trebic, 170 kilometres east of Prague,
earlier punished seven medical staff members, including both doctors
and nurses, involved in the case.
The mix-up has shattered lives of thee two families, who found out
that they have not been raising their biological daughters in
September.
The family of Libor Broza, a 29-year-old truck driver, underwent
genetic paternity testing, a result of his suspicion that the blond
girl, who showed no resemblance to him, was not his child.
Authorities soon located Jan Cermak, 27, and his wife Jaroslava,
25, who had been raising Broza's biological daughter.
The parents agreed to exchange the toddlers by their first
birthday, but are likely to delay the swap.
Deeply traumatized mothers, who have nursed and cuddled the baby
girls as their own for 10 months, are far from ready for the move, the
families said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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