Greek police are trying to determine the identity of a four-year-old girl who was found living with a Roma couple in central Greece.
Photo: The girl stood out because she bore no resemblance to the couple claiming to be her parents. (Reuters/supplied)
Police had suspected that the blonde, green-eyed girl may have been kidnapped or was the victim of human trafficking.
Officers spotted her on Wednesday at a Roma camp in the Greek town of Farsala.
Standing out by her complexion, police questioned the couple claiming to be her parents, who had false papers, one of which stated they had six children in a 10-month period.
DNA tests showed the girl was not related to the couple and they have since been arrested.
Meanwhile a lawyer for the Roma couple who claimed to be her parents says the girl was willingly given up by her biological mother.
"We're talking about a woman who could not raise this child and who gave it to the couple in 2009 through a third party shortly after her birth," Marietta Palavra said.
"There has been no kidnapping, no robbery, no trafficking," added her colleague Konstantinos Katsavos, who also represents the 40-year-old woman and her husband, 39.
"They did not buy the child."
Police to launch Europe-wide search for girl's parents
The discovery of the girl gave hope to the parents of missing British girl Madeleine McCann that they will find her alive, their spokesman said.
Greek police are looking to question the biological mother, who does not have Greek citizenship, according to the couple's lawyers, to confirm the story.
Police said they would seek assistance from Interpol to identify the girl in a Europe-wide search.
Lawyers hope that relatives of the girl will be found before the couple is questioned by a judge in the central city of Larissa on Monday morning and possibly charged for "abducting a minor".
Police said the couple had repeatedly changed their version of how the girl, who was undergoing medical exams at a hospital on Saturday, came to live with them.
Press reported the couple claimed they found the girl abandoned outside a supermarket, and then in another version said they had obtained the child from her Bulgarian mother.
But the couple's lawyer Mr Katsavos said they had "not made an official deposition so far".
Charity to look after girl
The girl is expected to stay with The Smile of a Child charity after her discharge from hospital, Kostas Giannopoulos, who heads the organisation, said.
"The girl is more at peace" than when police took her away from the camp, he said.
"For the first time she is with people who care for her."
The girl's discovery came days after a television program was broadcast in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands about the case of Madeleine McCann.
Kate and Gerry McCann have been searching for their daughter since May 2007, when she vanished from their holiday apartment in Portugal's Praia da Luz resort while the couple were at dinner.
AFP
