As it was officially announced on Saturday, a First Instance Court in the city of Larissa ruled that the children’s charity ‘Smile of the Child’ will be awarded legal custody of five-year-old Maria, the little girl who made headlines around the world when she was found living in a Roma settlement in Farsala, central Greece, with a couple that had falsely presented themselves as her parents.

‘Little Maria’, as she became known around the world, was taken to the ‘Smile of the Child’ charity soon after she was removed from the couple last October.

The Roma couple had told police that the girl was given into their care voluntarily by her Bulgarian biological parents, also Roma, when she was still a baby.

According to the ruling that was issued on Friday, the court accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation to award custody to the children’s charity and remove it from the Roma pair that had falsely presented themselves as her parents.

Moreover, the court rejected a request filed by a responsible agency in Bulgaria, also asking for the child’s custody based on the fact that the child’s biological parents are Bulgarian nationals.

The court rejected the Bulgarian request noting that it is to the child’s best interest to stay in familiar surroundings, underlining that Maria’s alleged biological parents have expressed no interest in her.