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BRNO, South Moravia
November 17, 1998
Glenda Roach, 52, and her husband Steven, 41, from Utah, who are suspected of ill-treatment and limiting personal freedom in the Morava Academy case, are not allowed to leave the Czech Republic, Petr Netik from the Brno regional office of investigation said today.
Netik said that there was danger that the couple would avoid the legal procedure after leaving the country and that was why the police took "administrative" steps to prevent their departure.
The Roach couple and two Czechs were accused of ill-treatment in implementation of the "re-education" programme carried out at the Morava Academy in hotel Jelenice near the Brno dam.
American parents paid 60 dollars a day for the "re-education" of their problem children who were, however, kept in isolation, tied up and reportedly even prevented from going to the toilet.
The accused face up to eight years in prison.
"Of course we were not allowed to take their passports. But they would not be allowed to cross the border in case they would try to leave the country," Netik said, adding that the American couple has not been taken into custody.
The investigator asked for Steven Roach to be taken into custody but the court released him on a bail of 200,000 crowns.
The news agency AP said that the couple considered asking the Brno police for a permission to leave the country.
Olga Lepkova from the office of investigation, who was assigned to the case, told CTK that she had received no such request to date and that she was not informed if such a request had been submitted to the state attorney or to the court.
CTK found out that the Morava Academy, which advertised its offer to re-educate children from all over the world on the Internet, was supposed to end its activities after most of the children returned home but the Academy made no official statement on this yet.
($1=29.837 crowns)