Roma couple charged with abducting the mystery girl 'Maria'

A Roma couple are in court charged in relation to the abduction of a mystery blonde girl who captured the world's headlines.

By Dave Lancaster |

13:59 21 October 2013

A four-year-old, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl known only as Maria was discovered living in a Gypsy camp close to a Greek town of Farsala last week following a police drugs and weapons raid, resulting in the arrest of a man and woman over her abduction.

Local news sources name the two suspects as Hristos Salis, 39, and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40. Their lawyer confirmed that they "have a difficult road ahead" and that they will be seeing "the prosecutor at noon".

DNA tests have confirmed that the girl is of no relation to them despite their pleading that they were "given her legitimately" according to the BBC.

Greek authorities state that the couple had false papers suggesting that the woman in question had given birth to six children with a 10-month timeframe.

Maria is currently in the care of an Athens-run charity named The Smile of the Child. The charity has received over 8,000 calls following an appeal for information as to who her real parents are.

Some media outlets were quick to link the case with the disappearance of a young boy named Ben Needham, who was 21 months old when he vanished on the Greek island of Kos back in 1991. The boy's sister issued a statement that the finding of Maria gave them "great hope" that a similar conclusion could befall them in relation to Ben's whereabouts.

Similarly, a spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann said that the findings made the possibility of finding missing girl Madeleine (who vanished in Portugal in 200&) more hopeful.