A Roma couple is due to appear in court in Greece, on charges of abducting a four-year-old blonde girl named Maria.
The child was found during a raid on a Roma camp in central Greece last week. DNA tests showed that the girl is not related to the couple, who insist they were given her legitimately.
Maria is being cared for in Athens by a charity, called The Smile of the Child, which has received more than 8,000 calls after an appeal for information about the girl's identity.
The Roma couple - a woman aged 40 and a 39-year-old man - are due to appear before judges later on Monday to answer charges of abducting a minor and holding false papers.
The Roma community where the girl was found has rallied around the couple, saying they looked after her well.
The head of the Roma association in Farsala in central Greece says the pair 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, says the BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens.
A lawyer representing the Roma couple, Kostas Katsavos, said they were carrying out a search for the girl's mother.
He said the couple claim the woman had given Maria to them because she could not look after her own biological daughter.
"Our clients' claim is that 'we never abducted this child we just adopted her' in a way that was not legal, that we can confess," said Mr Katsavos.
Read More : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24605954
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