A magistrate has ordered that a Slovak woman be stripped of her legal rights over her adoptive daughter after finding her guilty of abandoning the child. Magistrate Miriam Hayman found the woman guilty of abandoning the girl when she was nine years old and handed down a one year jail term suspended for two years.

The magistrate heard how the woman had adopted the girl when she still lived in Slovakia. But she and her partner had to leave the country with the child because they were persucuted by the Slovak Mafia who wanted to take the girl away from them. The couple came to Malta with the girl and, one day, in August 2003 they asked their landlady to take care of the nine-year-old girl for a few hours. But the couple did not return to pick up the child.

They left Malta and headed for Prague where, about eight months later, they were arrested by Prague authorities. Meanwhile the girl, who is today 12 years old, lived in a Home.

The woman and her partner returned to Malta in September last year and were arrested at the airport. They were charged with abandoning the girl. The magistrate cleared the man of the charge ruling that he had no legal obligations towards the girl but found the woman guilty.