A Polish doctor has been taken into custody after 34 human fetuses were found buried in the garden of her former home, the authorities said on Monday.

Magdalena H. – a 57-year-old medical pathologist with no previous criminal record – is suspected of using the fetuses to perform experiments and now faces up to 12 years in prison.

Her case has whipped up a storm in traditionally Catholic Poland, with many questioning how she managed to obtain the unborn babies’ bodies in a country with some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe.

But a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said that there is so far no evidence she had obtained the fetuses through illegal abortions.

The charges against the doctor include desecrating corpses, improper waste handling and abandoning hazardous materials in an unauthorised location.

Last week, prosecutors in southeastern Poland were tipped off that medical waste had been discovered during construction work in her former house in the southeastern village of Lutoryz.