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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2013 16:36:32 GMT
A couple believed to be the parents of the ‘blonde angel’ found in a Greek gipsy camp were arrested this morning in Bulgaria. Bulgarians Sasha Ruseva, 35, and her husband Atana Rusev, 37, were interrogated by police officers before being released.  Sasha Ruseva with one of her children, whom she claims is albino, posing for photographers in the town of Nikolaevo, Bulgaria today Pictures from the Bulgarian village show the family have several children of a similar complexion to Maria – the blonde, blue-eyed child found in the Greek settlement a week ago. Two are believed to be albino. The Greek Roma couple who posed as Maria’s parents for four years - Hristos Salis, 39 and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40 - are believed to have bought the child for £850. They are currently in custody awaiting trial.  Children of Sasha Ruseva pose for photographs at their home today, including two believed to be albino The Mail has seen a copy of a birth certificate, stating that the Mrs Ruseva gave birth to a girl on January 31, 2009 at the general hospital in Lamia, 45 miles from Farsala, where Maria was born. The document lists no name for the baby – who had not yet been baptised – but the birth date matches that given by Salis and Dimolpoulou to police. |
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Post by Admin on Oct 25, 2013 5:58:53 GMT
A Roma woman in a remote town in central Bulgaria has undergone DNA testing as authorities investigate if she is the mother of a suspected abduction victim in neighbouring Greece known as "Maria" whose case has triggered a global search for her real parents. Sasha Ruseva, 35, had been tested for a match and served with preliminary charges of child selling, but was not detained, Bulgarian authorities said Thursday. Ruseva appeared on Bulgarian television after being questioned at a police station in the town of Nikolaevo, 280 kilometres east of the capital, Sofia, and admitted she once left a baby behind in Greece while working there, but was not sure if Maria was her daughter.  Sasha Ruseva, pictured here with her son Atanas, 2, who faces preliminary charges of child-selling linked to Maria. "I don't know if it's her. How would I know that? I didn't take any money. I just didn't have enough money to feed her," Ruseva said speaking on TV, which showed pictures of her and her family outside her mud-floored village home outside the town. Several of the children seen at the village were barefoot or looked poorly cared for. "I intended to go back and take my child home, but meanwhile I gave birth to two more kids, so I was not able to go back," Ruseva said. Bulgarian Interior Ministry chief secretary Svetlozar Lazarov said Ruseva had told police she had seen televised pictures of a Greek Roma couple who had looked after Maria and recognized them as the same people with whom she left her child. |
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Post by Admin on Oct 25, 2013 23:52:54 GMT
DNA tests prove a Bulgarian Roma couple are the biological parents of mystery girl Maria, found in Greece last week. Genetic profiles of Sasha Ruseva and her husband, Atanas, matched that of the girl, said Svetlozar Lazarov, an interior ministry official in Sofia. Ruseva has said she gave birth to a girl four years ago in Greece while working as an olive picker, and gave the child away because she was too poor to care for her.  A screengrab of Maria as a toddler taken from a home video. Maria has been in temporary care since last week after authorities raided a Roma settlement in central Greece and later discovered that the girl was not the biological child of the Greek Roma couple she was living with. The couple were arrested and charged with abduction and document fraud. A lawyer representing the Greek couple said they planned to seek legal custody of the fair-haired girl. The couple have told authorities they received Maria after an informal adoption. It now looks as though prejudice may have influenced how the Greek authorities handled the case. The question is now whether Maria will be returned to the couple that has raised her since she was a baby. Under Greek law, child abduction charges can include cases where a minor is voluntarily given away by the parents outside the legal adoption process. |
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Post by Admin on Oct 26, 2013 8:37:23 GMT
The four-year-old, dubbed the “blonde angel” by Greek media, was found last week hiding under a blanket at a Roma settlement in central Greece. DNA tests showed the Roma couple she was with were not her real parents. Maria, whose case has drawn parallels with the disappearance of 3-year-old Briton Madeleine McCann in 2007, is being looked after by a Greek charity, which says it has received over 10,000 calls with leads or from parents of missing children.
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2013 16:07:15 GMT
The mother of the Bulgarian Roma girl Maria, who was being raised by a Greek couple, has told a TV show that she did not sell her daughter. "She's my child. I'm her mother. I love her. I gave birth to her. I would tell Maria that I'm your mother. This is your father," she told CNN. "I will take care of her. She's mine. You can't change that fact." The Rusevs are being investigated by Bulgarian police on suspicion they sold Maria for illegal adoption. A Greek Roma couple -- Christos Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulo -- who were found looking after the girl are in custody charged with kidnapping.  "People say I received 400 leva (about $310 dollars) but how could I receive money? They keep saying that on TV. Do you think I would sell my child for 400 leva?" she told CNN. "I'd like to build a house. I don't have a proper house or a proper bed. Nothing. I didn't receive anything. I'm so poor." Ruseva said she and her husband left for Greece in 2009 to look for farm work. She says she left her eldest daughter Katia, now 20-years-old, to care for the family while they were away. Maria was born in a hospital in the Greek town of Lamia, about 70 kilometers from Farsala and the Roma camp where she was discovered earlier this month. Police officers of the anti-corruption unit have stated for zougla.gr that there is an ongoing major investigation in order to determine whether hospital and municipal employees were involved in an illegal adoptions scam. "There is strong evidence that employees of the hospital tampered documents relating to births of children, mostly those born from women with Bulgarian nationality who wanted to give their newborn children for adoption. We are waiting for the results of the investigation," they have indicated.  Mother Sasha Ruseva holds two-year-old Penka, one of her ten children, whom she claims is albino with father Atanas, right, as they talk to journalists in the town of Nikolaevo, Bulgaria Oct. 24. “I met a blond lady one day and we started talking and she told me, ‘why don’t you leave this kid to me, I don’t have kids and I have a comfortable place and the kid can live better with me than the way you live’,” Ruseva claimed during an appearance with her husband Atanas, 38, and three of their children, on TV7, a private Bulgarian television station. “I had to return to Bulgaria to take care of my other children when my eldest daughter, who was caring for them, got married,” Ruseva said. “But we had no money and then I had another two children. I want Maria back. I am her mother, how could I not want her. I do not care what they say. I want Maria back with me,” she shouted through tears. “I am not a criminal,” she insisted adding that she was terrified of going to jail. She faces charges of selling her daughter, a crime that carries a prison term of up to six years. “I just want to have a house and live there with Maria and my other children, and to care for them all,” she added. |
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