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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2013 22:22:13 GMT
The parents of Madeleine McCann were given ‘great hope’ tonight after a mystery blonde girl allegedly snatched from her family was found living with gypsies. Greek authorities requested international help to identify a four-year-old girl found living in a camp with a couple and 13 other children. Greek police are trying to figure out the identity of a young blonde girl, found living on a Roma settlement with a family she did not resemble. DNA tests revealed the child, called Maria and aged around four, was not related to the couple she lived with. The little girl is now being looked after by a charity. Her photo has been released to help find her family. Officials fear she may have been a victim of abduction or child trafficking. Police are appealing internationally as the little girl looks like she might be from northern or eastern Europe. Search: Missing girl A source said the youngster is believed to have been with the couple for at least two years and speaks only Roma. She is currently being assessed by child psychologists. He said: “Police are examining a wider network of child traffickers across Europe. This girl couple have been snatched to order or sold by east european criminal gangs. We know these networks exist.” Police are trying to establish why the girl was living with the couple, who are also accused of falsifying identity and birth certificates. The mother claimed to have given birth to six children within a total of less than 10 months. She is accused of illegally claiming benefits for the children.
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Post by Admin on Oct 19, 2013 22:56:36 GMT
Greek broadcasters are showing what is purported to be a home-made video of Maria, when she was younger, with the Roma family she was found living with: A four-year-old girl found living on a Roma settlement with a family who was not related to her has been taken to a hospital for a medical check and will then be transferred to a home of the child welfare charity organisation Smile of the Child. The president of the organisation, Kostas Yannopoulos, said the girl was in a state of shock and confusion. Greek police have asked for Interpol’s help in efforts to locate the parents of a 4-year-old girl found living with a Roma family in central Greece, even though a lawyer acting on behalf of the man and woman arrested for kidnapping the child claims they simply took the girl in when she was abandoned. Authorities suspect the pair were involved in human trafficking as records show them having a total of 14 children, registered in three different parts of Greece. However, speaking to Skai TV late on Friday, the couple’s lawyer, Marietta Palavra, said that the pair decided to take on the child after feeling sorry for her. She alleged that the girl’s biological mother, a foreign national, wanted to “get rid” of her child. In response to questions about why the couple had registered so many children, the lawyer claimed it was a way of maximizing the state benefits they could receive. When questioned about how they came to have the pale-skinned, blonde, green-eyed girl, the couple gave authorities “constantly changing claims,” Police Director Vassilis Halatsis said. “So far we do not have a declared disappearance of a child of this age in Greece. Through Interpol, we will request assistance from the other European countries,” the spokesperson said, adding that they believe Maria may be a victim of child trafficking. Her discovery is a cause for new optimism for Gerry and Kate McCann, the parents of British girl, Madeleine McCann.
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Post by Admin on Oct 20, 2013 23:38:38 GMT
More than 8,000 calls have made to a Greek charity after an appeal to discover the identity of a young blonde girl found living on a Roma settlement. The head of the Roma association in Farsala in central Greece says the couple treated her better than their biological children and that she loved them. The brother of the man claiming to be Maria's father repeated the defence that she had been given to them lawfully after her birth, our correspondent says. But the couple are suspected by social workers of kidnapping the girl and sending her out to beg, or involving her in a sex ring. An appeal has been launched throughout Europe The Roma, a poor people in a country devastated by an economic crisis, try to make a living in the camp on the outskirts of the central town of Farsala by selling fruits, carpets, blankets, baskets and shoes at local markets. They say they are already considered by some to be social outcasts, thieves and beggars. Now, they fear they will be stigmatized as child traffickers. The president of the local Roma community, Babis Dimitriou, hopes there is no backlash against the 2,000 Roma living in the community. The case "doesn't reflect on all of us," he told The Associated Press on Sunday.
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Post by Admin on Oct 21, 2013 23:03:27 GMT
A Greek Gypsy couple, accused of kidnapping a little girl, was given the girl by a Bulgarian Gypsy and adopted her "in a non-legal way," the couple's lawyer told ABC News today. A police source told ABC News that the girl, known only as Maria, was one of four children found with the couple, including two other girls and a boy. The police source said the couple had registered 14 children for welfare benefits, but it was not clear whether the other children existed. DNA tests have shown that adults were not the parents of Maria. It's not known if the three other kids were the natural children of the couple. The couple said they took the girl under their wing because her real mother could not care for her. They denied snatching her, and instead asked the court to trace a Bulgarian man who they claimed had helped the child’s mother find a family to care for her. They told the court that their taking in the child had been an “act of charity”. “There has been no kidnapping, no robbery, no trafficking,” Constantinos Katsavos, one of the lawyers representing Mr Salis, told reporters after the hearing. “It was an adoption that was not exactly legal but it took place with the mother’s consent.” A senior Roma representative supported that claim, telling reporters the girl's biological mother was Bulgarian. "This family got the child from Bulgarians. I know them personally. All the rest they are saying, that they snatched her because she is blonde and blue eyed to beg on the streets, are lies," said Manolis Sainopoulos, the deputy head of the Panhellenic Federation of Roma. "Right now she is in hospital and suffering because she misses the woman she regards as her mother."
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Post by Admin on Oct 22, 2013 17:12:54 GMT
Families around the world hold out hope after a Greek couple was accused of kidnapping a young girl.
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