Australian nurse Tammy Davis-Charles and a number of surrogates she had recruited to carry foreigners’ babies were hauled into Phnom Penh Municipal Court for a round of questioning yesterday, court officials confirmed.

Ey Rin, administrative chief at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, said investigative judge Ros Piseth spent a full morning questioning Davis-Charles for her alleged role in facilitating surrogacy in the Kindgom.

“For this whole morning, the most important thing was to check the evidence, and we also questioned Davis-Charles and we also questioned the victims,” Rin said.

Rin said he considered the “victims” to be the impoverished women who had agreed to become surrogates for $10,000 each.

Davis-Charles, founder of the surrogacy agency Fertility Solutions PGD, was arrested in November by anti-trafficking police, along with Penh Rithy, an employee at the Ministry of Commerce, and Samrith Chakriya, a nurse at Sihanouk Hospital. The trio was charged under Article 332 of the Penal Code, which forbids acting as an intermediary between adoptive parents and a pregnant woman.

They have also been charged with possessing fraudulent documents. Davis-Charles and her two Cambodian associates could face up to two years in prison if found guilty.

Rin said there would be more rounds of questioning for the accused. “We are still in the process of investigating.”