A Romanian court on Tuesday adjourned again the trial of Briton John Boast, accused of smuggling babies out of the country and summoneda ''key prosecution witness'' to testify in the case. Boast, 46, a self-described charity worker from Great Harwood in Lancashire, was first charged one year ago with smuggling a 15-month-old Romanian gypsy girl over the border with Hungary, to Britain. On Tuesday, the court in the northwest Transylvanian city of Oradea adjourned the case for February 11 after hearing a local gypsy leader and the customs officer on duty when Boast brought out the baby, allegedly hidden in his truck. Boast was arrested over a second case last May -- the alleged purchase for about $60 of two-year-old gipsy girl Viola Szilagy, who was taken out of Romania in June 1995. He was eventually freed after six months police custody. ''I know he promised (Szilagy's father) several thousand German marks, furniture and clothes in exchange for the girl,'' gypsy leader Petru Varga told the court, pointing to Boast.''There is no way one can tell whether a child was hidden in a vehicle which crossed the border that night, '' the customs officer told the court. ''We only carry out random checks.'' A prosecutor attendingTuesday's hearing asked presiding judge Vasile Marc to summon a ''keywitness'' who had apparently seen the alleged baby-for-cash transaction. Boast has denied both charges. He faces up to five years in jail for the first offence and an additional three years on the second countif found guilty as charged. Boast, dressed in a dark business suit, looked tense but kept silent during the hearing. He avoided reporters when leaving the court. He had been visiting Romania ferrying truck loads of aid after the 1989 fall of communism, when reports of abandoned babies living in grue some orphanages stunned the world. Thousands of babies were taken out of Romania before 1994, when the countrys tiffened adoption rules to fight its image as a baby farm for childless Westerners. British couple Adrian and Bernadette Mooney were sentenced to two years' jail 1994 for trying to smuggle a baby girl out of Romania. Ex-President Ion Iliescu stepped in to have their sentence suspended.

   
RomNews