Staff at French ultra-Orthodox school charged with mistreating pupils

MEAUX, France  — Seven staff members of an ultra-orthodox Jewish religious school near Paris are charged with “aggravated violence,” prosecutors say after students are taken into care.

The Beth Yossef school in Bussieres, around 60 kilometers (35 miles) east of the capital Paris, has been hosting around 60 children aged 13-18 including “many underage American and Israeli children who do not speak French in abusive conditions,” prosecutor Laureline Peyrefitte says.

The children allegedly suffered “being locked up, confiscation of their identity documents, poor conditions, acts of abuse, lack of access to education and healthcare, and no possibility of returning to their families.”

Police say they had taken 17 staff members in for questioning.

The seven were charged on Friday with various offenses relating to the mistreatment of pupils and placed under judicial supervision, Peyrefitte adds.

Site managers, teaching staff, supervisors had “generally denied the facts even if some were able to describe acts like slaps and blows,” she says.

An American boy escaped from the school in July and sought shelter at the US embassy in Paris.

Others followed, and Israeli public television has been investigating the school for months.

Some of the children have already been returned to their parents.