Roma couple say mystery girl was given up willingly by her mother
A ROMA couple accused of abducting a mystery four-year-old girl claimed yesterday that her biological mother had willingly given her to them as a baby.
The discovery of the girl, known as Maria, has prompted thousands of calls with leads from across the world as authorities try to track down her parents, as DNA tests have shown she was not born to the couple.
Last night, Greek police released photographs of the couple. The 39-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman, identified as Christos Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, were detained yesterday on charges of abduction and document fraud following their arrest last week.
The couple were arrested after police, who raided a Roma camp in central Greece last week in search of drugs and weapons, found the girl with pale skin and blue eyes who did not resemble the family she was living with. But yesterday they denied they had snatched the child and say they took her under their care after her mother handed the girl to them shortly after giving birth.
“It was an adoption that was not exactly legal, but took place with the mother’s consent,” Constantinos Katsavos, one of the lawyers representing Salis, told reporters, adding that is what the couple testified in court.
The couple were held in custody pending trial after responding to charges of abduction and procuring false documents, as more than a dozen policemen stood guard outside.
So far, more than 5,000 people, from Texas to Sweden, have phoned the charity looking after Maria to offer clues or in search of their missing children.
Based on her characteristics, police believe Maria, who has spoken just a few words in Greek and Roma dialect, is eastern or northern European.
At the weekend, the mother of Ben Needham, who disappeared when he was a toddler, said she hoped the discovery might offer new leads in his abduction.
Kerry Needham’s son was 21 months old when he was taken from his grandparents’ home on the island of Kos in Greece in 1991. Ms Needham she said was “delighted” at the news that the blonde girl has been discovered in the country where Ben was last seen.
The discovery has also buoyed the hopes of Madeleine McCann’s parents. The Leicestershire girl, then three, vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007, as her parents dined with friends in a nearby tapas restaurant.
Clarence Mitchell, a spokesman for her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, said Maria had renewed their hope that Madeleine would also be found.
The case has raised questions about whether children were being stolen to order and whether the couple were part of a wider child-trafficking ring.
In the bustling square outside the court in the city of Larissa, where Salis and Dimopoulou faced magistrates yesterday, members of the Roma community gathered to show their support and said they were being unfairly stigmatised.
“They are completely innocent. These are all fairy tales and we’re going to prove it to society,” Babis Dimitriou, the head of the local Roma community, said.
“They accuse the Roma of everything – of stealing, of snatching kids. Do these things only happen among our race? This is a huge insult for us.”
Police have found papers sug- gesting the couple had up to 14 children, but six were registered as having been born within less than ten months.
“It’s unfair,” a Roma woman who gave her name as Kyriaki said outside the court on hearing the decision to hold the couple in custody. “She raised this child since she was a baby.”