Twenty-six suspects in a baby-trafficking case involving 26 infants stood trial from Wednesday to Friday in Zhejiang province, with some of them stating they were helping find good parents for vulnerable babies.

The suspects, including couples and a father and son, took on different roles including intermediaries, caregivers and transportation, and sold the infants in Zhejiang, Fujian and Yunnan provinces in the previous two years, prosecutors said.

The People's Court of Cangnan county of Wenzhou did not announce a verdict.

One noticeable suspect - a 68-year-old retired obstetrician surnamed Li from a well-known hospital in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province - denied the charge of trafficking five infants, though she admitted participating in the transactions of three newborns.

"I don't perceive it as trafficking and I didn't get a penny from the deals. I regarded my behavior as a way to help people and save the babies as they were abandoned by their parents because they were unmarried or they had economic difficulties," Li said during the trial.

Lawyers said that Li, as a doctor, must clearly understand that a police report should be made any time a woman abandons her baby.

"Even if someone leaves a baby secretly in the hospital, doctors should alert the police and children's welfare home," said Yi Shenghua, a lawyer at Yingke Law Firm in Beijing.

Clues about the case began to surface when some people in Cangnan heard babies crying in an old house, and suspected that the owner was not their father. Police captured nine people and saved the babies. More suspects were captured afterward in Shanghai and the provinces of Hebei and Yunnan.

Some of the infants were resold repeatedly in different provinces, with the price for a baby ranging from 10,000 yuan ($1,520) to 100,000 yuan, according to prosecutors.

The number of baby trafficking cases declined to 853 last year from 1,918 in 2012, as tougher penalties, including the death sentence, were introduced, statistics from the Supreme People's Court showed.

But there are still people selling their children, especially in rural areas, owing to weak legal awareness or a preference for sons, according to Chen Shiqu, a deputy inspector at the criminal investigation bureau at the Ministry of Public Security.

zhouwenting@chinadaily.com.cn