14 DAY TRIAL // While authorities are still trying to track down the real parents of the 4-year-old girl found in a Roma Gypsy camp in central Greece on Friday, the couple raising her are speaking out in their defense, saying she was their “adopted” daughter.
The girl has been dubbed the “Blonde Angel” by the media and is believed to be named Maria. She only speaks a few words in the Roma language and some more in Greek, and can’t provide any kind of information about her real parents.
The couple who had her, Hristos Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, have been arrested and charged with abduction of a minor and holding false documentation. Police are looking into the possibility that they might have stolen Maria from her real parents with the intention of exploiting her for money.
An attorney for the couple is telling The Independent that this was never the case. “It was an adoption that was not exactly legal but took place with the mother’s consent,” Constantinos Katsavos says.
However, he doesn’t offer more details of the “adoption” and why the girl’s real mother chose to leave her with complete strangers.
The case only gets weirder if you consider what sources are telling the Daily Mail, about how the man never wanted the child in his home.
“He said in 2009 he was away from home for a few days when he received a phone call from his wife, who said that there was a Bulgarian couple at the home who did not want their child. He said he did not want a child and said, ‘I don’t want to put a bomb in my house’,” an insider present at yesterday’s court hearings recalls for the tab.
The two face a maximum of 10 years behind bars on the abduction charge only. They are also being charged with providing false documentation, after police caught the woman claiming on paper to have given birth to six children over the course of 10 months – only to get state benefits.
The “Blonde Angel” Maria was discovered at the Roma Gypsy camp hiding under a blanket, during a police raid looking for drugs. DNA testing immediately showed that she was in no relation to the people claiming to be her father and mother.
Maria is now with the charity Smile of the Child, which is receiving tips from all over the world as regards her true identity.