Suspended sentence for lawyer convicted over illegal adoptions

A Thessaloniki appeals court has handed a lawyer a four-year suspended jail sentence on condition that he pay 3,000 euros to a children’s charity after finding him guilty of brokering illegal adoptions.

The case involves five illegal adoptions – one in 2014 and four in 2016 – where financially vulnerable women from Bulgaria were lured to come to Greece to give birth in private clinics and hand their babies up for adoption in return for a small fee.

The court found that the lawyer made over €32,000 from the adoptions, receiving payments ranging from €2,000 to 18,000 to his bank account.

The lawyer maintained his innocence throughout the trial and appeal. [AMNA]