Russia's Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a lower court's decision to acquit an Italian citizen charged with bribing officials and forging documents to facilitate adoptions of Russian children by foreigners and sent it back for further investigation, a court official said.

Nadezhda Fratti, of the Italian adoption agency Arcobaleno, was arrested last year in the southern Russian city of Volgograd. A Volgograd court acquitted her in April, citing insufficient evidence, but a local prosecutor appealed to the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the Volgograd court for further examination, said court spokesman Pavel Odintsov. Fratti, who was present in the courtroom, faces a prison sentence of up to eight years if convicted.

Odintsov said he did not know the status of Fratti's three co-defendants - an orphanage director, orphanage doctor and education department inspector from Volgograd - who also faced charges in the scandal. The full text of the court's decision will be made public Thursday, he said.

Corruption in Russia's adoption system is rampant, and in 2000, Russia imposed new registration requirements for adoption agencies with the aim of rooting out graft.

More than 200,000 Russian children live in institutions, yet Russian families rarely adopt because of the social stigma. Russian nationalists have often accused foreigners of "buying" Russian children, and cases of abuse by foreign adopted parents have been widely reported in the Russian media.