A Slovakian woman was yesterday stripped of the parenting rights to her adopted daughter after a court deemed that she had ill-treated the nine-year-old child by abandoning her in Malta.

Gabriela Zelenek was also given a one-year jail term suspended for two years for committing the crime on 19 August 2003. Her husband Peter was absolved of legal responsibility as he had no legal obligation towards the child, however, the court presided over by magistrate Miriam Hayman chastised him because he did, in the court’s opinion, have a moral responsibility for the child’s well-being.

The court said the case revolved around the abandonment of a child. In her testimony, the child recalled that her parents used to tell her that they were going to leave her in Malta but she did not know when this would occur. The child recalled that together with her parents they went to a policewoman friend, left the child at her house with the understanding that they would pick her up at 7pm. The minor recalled that her parents failed to pick her up at the established time. Thus the policewoman took her where she used to live with her parents and there they found her packed suitcase.

The child also recalled another occasion when her parents had left to run an errand and left her alone in their flat in Malta. She also remembered that previously before being taken to a home for children in Malta, she was in a home for children in Slovakia. She said that she was taken to this institute by her mother Gabriela.

The child also said that when she was left with the policewoman, her mother gave her Lm3. She also confirmed that her first father Robert and her mother Gabriela had taken her to the Slovakian institute describing it as a place where parents leave their children instead of taking care of them.

Philippa Zerafa confirmed that Gabriela asked her a favour to keep her daughter for two hours because she needed to go to Gozo. She said that she had just got to know Gabriela due to the fact that she had leased a flat to her. Zerafa agreed for this favour on the condition that the mother would not be long. On seeing that Gabriela had not returned to pick her child, she phoned her up but her telephone was not in a position to respond. Together with her husband they went over to the accused’s flat and here found the cupboards empty except for a case full of the child’s clothes.

In a statement Gabriela Zelenak stated that the child was her adopted daughter. She was adopted at the age of 10 months, in autumn 1995.

She recalled that together with her husband, the co-accused Peter and the child, she had run away from Slovakia. She stated that her first husband hated the child and after their divorce he went so far as stealing her money and jewellery. He threatened her that the child would be re-sent to an orphanage.

The court said Gabriela Zelenak definitely had a legal responsibility towards the minor as any natural mother would have to her natural born daughter.

The court said the prosecution pointed out that a certain police officer testified that he met a child who could speak only Yugoslavian language and who was crying. “No surprise! No nine-year-old child can be expected to understand even if told ad nauseam that her beloved parents have left her with a stranger in a foreign country. One need only imagine a lost child in a crowd and the sense of distress that befalls that child, a situation one must have encountered. Imagine then the sense of loss and abandonment inflicted on this child, who according to her mother had already been through quite a lot of hardship in her very young life,” ruled magistrate Hayman

“It is the opinion of this Court that this child suffered unnecessary psychological cruelty,” concluded the court.

Peter Zelenak was cleared of responsibility by the court, however the girl’s mother was found to be responsible and was given a suspended jail term for ill treatment of the said child and was also stripped of parental rights to her.