Maria Mystery: Roma Couple In Greek Court

Written By Unknown on Senin, 21 Oktober 2013 | 18.25

A Roma couple are in court charged with abducting a mystery blonde girl in Greece.

The pair - named in local papers as Hristos Salis, 39, and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40 - were escorted into the back of a courthouse in Larissa from a police van.

Their friends and family waited at the front of the building, with reporters and TV satellite crews.

The couple's lawyer Matetta Palavra was surrounded by journalists as he entered the court.

"You will leave us alone for now, we have a difficult road ahead of us," he told them.

Asked by one reporter what stage the case was at, he replied: "We will see the prosecutor at noon."

The four-year-old girl - known as Maria - was discovered living in a Gypsy camp near the Greek town of Farsala on Wednesday after a raid by police looking for drugs and weapons.

British police say there is no link between her case of and that of missing boy Ben Needham.

Greek court The pair were taken by police van into the back of the courthouse

Ben - one of Britain's longest-running missing person cases - was 21 months old when he went missing on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.

A prosecutor who accompanied police on the raid thought it odd that Maria did not look like her darker-skinned "parents".

DNA tests later confirmed the couple are not her biological parents.

Greek authorities have put out a worldwide appeal to help identify the youngster and find her real family.

Maria is being cared for in Athens by the Greek charity Smile Of The Child, which say they have been inundated with more than 8,000 calls about the girl.

The calls have come from people in the US, Scandinavia, Australia, South Africa and other countries.

Greek court The couple are appearing at a court in Larissa

Charity spokesman Panayiotis Pardalis said a few of the calls had specific details and have been forwarded to police.

Police have said they would seek assistance from Interpol to identify the girl in a Europe-wide search.

The Roma community in Farsala is said to be anxious about the attention the case is attracting.

In a country already devastated by economic crisis, the Roma in the camp make a living selling fruit, carpets, blankets, baskets and shoes at local markets.

They are already considered by some to be social outcasts, thieves and beggars, and now they are worried they will be wrongfully stigmatised as kidnappers and child traffickers.

The president of the local Roma community, Babis Dimitriou, said he hoped there would not be a backlash following Maria's discovery.

"There are no transactions involving children here," he said, adding that the couple cared for the little girl "even better than for their own children".

The Roma in Farsala insist their community is not involved in abductions or trafficking.

But police say they are aware of "dozens" of such cases involving Bulgarian Roma in Greece.

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