A woman taken into custody on suspicion of abusing her baby to death and abandoning his body years ago was released Saturday, police said.

The suspect, in her 50s, had been arrested on charges of abandoning the baby’s body after he died suddenly due to an illness in 2015, according to the Gwacheon Police Agency.

Prosecutors, however, disapproved of the police request for an emergency arrest of the suspect, citing the possibility that the statute of limitations for her alleged crime had expired.

She told police that the baby had Down syndrome, and she buried his body at a family gravesite.

Police launched the probe into the case upon receiving a report from the municipal government of Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, about his whereabouts.

Other details of the incident have yet to be disclosed.

The government is conducting an extensive probe into some 2,000 children without birth registrations nationwide after a mother was arrested earlier this week for allegedly killing her two newborn babies and storing their bodies in a refrigerator at home.

Source: Yonhap News Agency