Greek Maria’s adoptive parents cleared of kidnap charges two years after arrest

The court in the central Geek city of Larissa said it had insufficient evidence to further prosecute Christos Salis and his wife Eleftheria Dimopoulou, the state agency ANA said.

Four-year-old Maria made international headlines in 2013 when she was found living with the Roma couple, who were not her parents, in the Greek town of Farsala.

In the UK, the press linked falsely linked Maria to the missing child Maddie McCann in what became a text book moral panic about Gypsy child stealing.

After a blood and DNA test proved that Maria was a Roma child, the Greek and Bulgarian authorities tracked down her birth mother to Bulgaria.

Maria’s birth mother, Sasha Rusev, admitted leaving Maria as a seven-month-old baby in Greece in 2009, during a stay for seasonal work, because she was too poor to look after her. The rest of her children remained in Bulgaria and are in the care of her wider family. Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulou said that they took Maria in and raised her as part of their family in Greece until she was taken from them by the police, who spotted her blonde hair during a routine raid on the Roma settlement. Today Maria remains in the care of Athens-based charity Smile of the Child and lives in one of their many children’s homes.

Speaking to the Travellers Times before the charges were dropped, the lawyer for the Greek Roma couple, Mr Konstantinos Katsavos, said that Sasheva Rusheva gave the infant Maria to the couple soon after she gave birth and became unable to cope whilst she was olive picking in Greece.

"There has been no kidnapping, no robbery, no trafficking and no money changed hands,” says Katsavos.

“Maria was given away by her mother and Christos Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulou took her in as an act of charity.”

Konstantinos Katsovos is also critical of the charity Smile of the Child. He says that they have allowed no contact or communication between the couple and their lawyers and Maria. Nor have they released any information about Maria’s health and wellbeing to the couple.

The Travellers' Times contacted Smile of the Child last year when they were awarded custody of Maria. A spokesperson for the charity said that they looked after children from many different cultures and nationalities and that Maria was treated no differently from them, in that her care was designed with regard to her “personality” and “social background”. When pressed, the spokesperson admitted that the charity looked after a lot of Greek Roma children - many of whom, like Maria, have Romanes and not Greek as their first language – yet none of the Smile of a Child’s care workers spoke Romanes.

It remains unclear whether the couple will seek to regain custody of Maria.