Second Roma youngster seized
Greek police say child may have been abducted
ATHENS — Three Greek Roma were arrested on the eastern island of Lesvos on Wednesday on suspicion of child abduction, days after a similar case involving a girl known as “Maria” prompted an international investigation.
Police on the Aegean Sea island allege that the suspects tried to register the 2½-month-old boy as their own, but raised suspicions because they lacked sufficient documentation.
Regional police chief Panagiotis Kordonouris told the Associated Press the 19-year-old woman, her 21-year-old male companion and his 51-year-old mother were arrested at a Roma settlement outside the island capital of Mytilini.
Kordonouris told the AP they claimed an unknown Roma woman gave them the baby in Athens.
“They told us they didn’t give her any money, and that they met by accident. She told them that she had five children; they said that they are unable to have their own and asked if she could give her one,” Kordonouris said.
Last week, a Roma couple in the mainland town of Farsala was charged with abducting the girl known as “Maria” living with them.
The girl’s discovery triggered an international investigation for a possible match with children declared missing as well as a probe in Greece to check for potential birth certificate fraud committed in the past six years.
The couple, who are 39 and 40, told police they had received the blond girl from a destitute Bulgarian woman and had brought her up with their own five children.
They have been charged with abduction and document fraud.
Police alleged the woman had declared six births in less than 10 months, and the couple registered a total 14 children with officials in three cities. The suspects allegedly received more than 2,500 euros (about $3,600) a month in welfare payments, and authorities are examining whether the child registrations amounted to welfare fraud.
Both have been jailed awaiting trial. A police official familiar with the investigation said investigators were working on the assumption that the child may have been handed over by its parents to be trafficked..
The international police agency Interpol said it has not matched any missing cases to the DNA of the girl, who has been placed in temporary care with a Greek charity called Smile of the Child.
“The child is not on any list of missing children, so we believe this clearly demonstrates that this is not a case of kidnapping. … All the evidence that is emerging is providing confirmation of what my clients have been saying,” the couple’s lawyer Marietta Palavra told Skai television.
Authorities say “Maria” is in good health, and there is no indication that she was abused, or even treated differently than other Gypsy children in the settlement.
Smile of the Child director Costas Yannopoulos said the charity has received more than 10,000 phone calls and thousands of emails since launching the appeal for information.
The charity said it had received only nine specific referrals of missing child cases it had forwarded to police — from the United States, Poland, France, and Slovakia.