Eight Croatians who adopted four children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo appeared before the High Court in Ndola, Zambia on Monday, pleading not guilty to the charges of attempted human trafficking, the Croatian state news agency Hina learned from diplomatic sources.

It was their first appearance before the High Court since the trial was transferred from a lower court. The next hearings were scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week, when prosecution witnesses will be heard. The court allowed the court proceedings to be translated into Croatian.

A Zambian immigration officer also appeared at today’s hearing and she, too, pleaded not guilty.

The court on Monday granted a motion to expand the indictment to include a tenth defendant, a national of the DR Congo residing in Zambia.

The four Croatian couples travelled to Zambia late last year to collect the children from DR Congo, aged 1-3, for whom Croatian courts had confirmed adoption papers and the Ministry of the Interior had issued the necessary documents. They were arrested at Ndola airport on 7 December 2022 before their departure from Zambia on suspicion of document forgery and child trafficking.

They had spent nearly seven weeks in prison in Zambia before they were released on bail on 23 January. On 6 February, the judge ended the trial and gave the Croatians 48 hours to leave the country, but the next day the couples were sent back to prison because the indictment against them was expanded. Shortly afterwards, they were again released on bail.