Hristos Salis, the man accused of abducting a mystery blonde girl in Greece has now blamed his wife entirely for taking her in, calling the child a "bomb" he never wanted in his home.
The latest update in the high-profile kidnapping case comes as Hristos and his wife Eleftheria Dimopoulou appeared in court to be formally charged with child abduction and forging documents.
"He said he did not want a child and said, 'I don’t want to put a bomb in my house'."
The little blue-eyed girl, known as Maria, was discovered last week when police raided a Roma camp and noticed the lack of resemblance between the blonde, blue-eyed child and her parents. They found further discrepancies when they investigated the family’s documents and DNA tests have shown that the girl bears no relation to Hristos or Eleftheria.
The pair have insisted they did NOT abduct the child, appealing unsuccessfully to be released on bail so they can trace a Bulgarian woman they say abandoned her as a baby. However, now that the couple have fallen out and chosen to use separate lawyers, Hristos has apparently come up with a new version of events.
"We brought her up well, we loved her."
According to sources at a UK newspaper, Hristos shifted blame on his wife:
"He said in 2009 he was away from home for a few days when he received a phone call from his wife, who said that there was a Bulgarian couple at the home who did not want their child."
"He said he did not want a child and said, 'I don’t want to put a bomb in my house'."
"We gave her everything we could, like we do for our other children."
His lawyer Constantinos Katsavos added: "It was an adoption that was not exactly legal but took place with the mother’s consent."
Hristos's wife, Eleftheria, backed up claims that the child was obtained through illegal adoption, telling Greek television from her cell: "We gave her everything we could, like we do for our other children."
And Salis’s sister Dimitra has told the Daily Mail that Maria had been abandoned by a Bulgarian cotton picker when she was two months old: "The woman told us, 'Take this baby. If you do not I will just give it to someone else'. She just left and never came back."
"We brought her up well, we loved her."
The case continues.