Portuguese Press (Translations) No Discussion

[colomom]

http://dn.sapo.pt/2007/06/17/sociedade/provas_raptor_maddie_foram_destruida.html

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n Diario de Noticias:

http://tinyurl.com/22lreg

On the night Madeleine McCann was abducted, on May 3, over 20 persons may have entered the appartment where she spent her holidays with her parents, at the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz, "destroying evidence and decisive, fundamental clues" for Policia Judiciaria (PJ) to identify who kidnapped the girl.

This situation was admitted yesterday to Diario de Noticias by the PJ's spokesman, Olegario Sousa, according to whom "the presence of so many persons, especially in the bedroom where the child slept with her siblings, could, at least, have complicated the Scientific Police's work and, in the utmost, have destroyed evidence. It may even have been fatal for the investigation."

As DN could find out, right after Gerard and Kate McCann detected the disappearance of Madeleine, around 9.30 pm, over 20 persons entered the room, between friends and family who were there on vacation with the couple and their children, and also many tourists and resort employees, who, out of natural worry and anxiety, searched everywhere for the british child, rummaging beds, cupboards and other furniture, opening and closing doors and windows.

Although the appartment was immediately sealed that night by the authorities, this situation ended up eliminating possible traces of the passage of the person who took the british girl from the appartment.

On the other hand, a large part of the forensic tests that were done in the appartment where the McCanns were staying, in the villa where the mother of Robert Murat (the only arguido in this case for suspicion of kidnapping) lives, which is 200 m from the spot, and in their vehicles, and in other locations, have not yet reached the hands of the investigation's coordinators, contrary to what was said by a national daily newspaper yesterday, said Olegario Sousa to DN yesterday.

[colomom]

http://dn.sapo.pt/2007/05/28/sociedade/judiciaria_segue_pista_velejador_bri.html

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Link of the latest from Mariajose

http://tinyurl.com/2qnsjw

Briefly and the best I can as its been translated:

One of the computers taken from Robert Murat's house has references to an English citizen, the owner of a yacht in the marina of Lagos. The theory they are following is that Madeleine was led to the boat in the marina of lagos, this is being seen as the most reasonable lead by the PJ. The abductor could then have gone to another country, one named is morocco and this is strengthened by a sighting of a girl with a man at the marina on the same night. The English man is supposed to have had the boat for a number of years and lives on it, but also travels to other countries. When the owner of a boat wishes to leave the marina they only have to give the time they want to leave and how many people are leaving, nobody goes on the boat to check the identity of the occupants. The recent description of a man that police are looking to speak to is then given. I'm not quite sure of the next part (something about Interpol) but it then goes on to say that with nothing concrete the PJ continue to see Marraquexe, in Morocco as being the strongest lead, this is fuelled by a sighting of a girl in a petrol station asking for her mum.

[colomom]

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=244320&idselect=9&idCanal=9&p=200

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Main News in CM today: http://tinyurl.com/yqm9au

phone calls made on may 3rd between 8 and 9pm in Praia da Luz are being thoroughly investigated. English experts are helping with this.
RM's and SM's phones were tracked but aparently nothing important was discovered. SM was not in the area at the alleged time of the abduction.

The PJ has investigated the boats that went through the algarve ports and marinas at the time of the abduction. They even came up with a list of possible suspects and contacted severel sailors. Special attention was given to the Marina of Lagos, closest to Praia da Luz. All boats that left the marina in the days after the abduction were tracked and investigated. Nothing suspicious was discovered. PJ also talked to sailors that spend months in the area, but no one saw anything suspicious.
The Lagos Marina is constantly surveilled by a security company. No boats can sail during the night, as the access is closed.

[colomom]

http://www.correiomanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=244455&idselect=9&idCanal=9&p=200

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In CM today http://tinyurl.com/2ftdng

The PJ should start to make new questionings during this week, at a time when the lab tests are due in at any time, acording to inside source.
Dozens of phonecalls continue to flood police lines with people giving clues about the wanted man. Unfortunately none has proven to be useful so far.
Three english police officers that volunteered to help PJ continue to do so.
It was revealed that the english police also helped in the first days searches, and even sent equipment that could track human heat, which was used in the searches.
Chief Olegário said: "We still haven't found any indication or traces that the child has had a tragic ending" stating that they remain very optimistic to the investigation having a happy ending.
The PJ is still waiting for answers from the morocan police about the gas station sighting. It is up to the morocan police to decide on the importance of the case.

[colomom]

http://www.correiomanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=244577&idselect=21&idCa

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The word is that Gerry did leave the Tapas at 9pm and returned to the bar at approx 9:10. The abductor, it is said, waited outside by the back window where he could hear what was going on inside the room. When all clear he walked around the corner of the bldg and entered the front door. There was no blanket taken from the apt., so he brought his own. He exited through the French doors, and did take her between 9:10 when they saw the father leave and 9:30 when the friend saw part of Madelines pink Pj's sticking out from underneath a blanket, the package held uncomfortably, or not perfectly set in the abductors arms. The abductor walked down a path, striding quick but not running steps that led to a walkway that went between the 2 swimming pools, and the scent of Madeleine has been found in one of the units/apts in this same Ocean resort from where she was taken, which is very close to the parents home of SM, {Milakov ?}, the Russian computer man who RM telephoned 30 min after Madeleine was abducted.

[colomom]

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Here is something in the jornal de noticias, here's the translated page:

http://tinyurl.com/3djnsc

"E while the McCann if found in Rome, in the beach of the Light, Lakes, the Judiciary Policy continued the inquiries. Some inspectores had been seen next to the house of Sergey Malinka, the young Russian who is witness in this case and to who two computers had been apprehended.

Jose Lages, 85 years, deferred payment in the apartment to the side of Malinka and say that the Policy beat to it to the door for return of the 13 hours. “They had asked to my woman as if it called and later they had asked for the telephone number. Of followed, they had been to the other apartments of the building to the one of the side”, counted.

The inspectores had been still in the commercial center of the Light, located next to the church. The PJ does not speak on the inquiry and sends clarifications for an eventual conference of the press that will be able will occur today.
"
(original page at http://tinyurl.com/2nnobf)

Total disclaimer as to the translation of the translation

[colomom]

http://www.portugaldiario.iol.pt/noticia.php?id=816590&div_id=291

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"The investigators know that Robert Murat, the only one arguido of the process, and the Russian informático Sergei Malinka, witness, had spoken between itself in the night of the disappearance of the English girl"

[colomom]

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=245015&idselect=10&idCanal=10&p=200

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Brief translation from CM

A new track on the disappearance of Madeleine McCan is to be taken in account by the British specialists of communications, after having intercepted telecoms in Arab with references to a blond girl. It then goes on to say that this came from 'The people newspaper and the british police refuse to comment "sending for the Portuguese authorities, that lead the inquiries"

[colomom]

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=245339&idselect=10&idCanal=10&p=200

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in CM today:

the video surveillance footage of the morocco gas station where a little girl like Madeleine was seen by Marie Olli are expected to arrive at Portugal today, sent by the Moroccan Police.

[colomom]

Translation - Info on El Mundo - tracking of suspect to Algarve

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http://tinyurl.com/25m65a

"New leads in the Madeleine case?

MADRID – There is movement in the case of the missing girl Madeleine McCann: the Spanish journalist Antonio Toscano assured the newspaper “El Mundo” that he knows the identity of the suspected abductor of the four-year-old: a man who had already been convicted of paedophilia (in a different country in the EU) and who probably works for an international paedophile ring operating on an EU scale. The man was allegedly seen one week before the abduction in the gay bar “Bar Arny” in Seville, where he told someone that he was going to the Algarve to visit friends. The bar has a dubious reputation in Spain; prominent visitors to the establishment were involved in child prostitution in 1996.

[colomom]

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=246062&idselect=10&idCanal=10&p=200

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PJ is open to receive the information from Antonio Toscano. Olegario de Sousa confirmed to the cm that he has spoken to Antonio who disclosed that he had more information than was published in the El Periodical World. He believes Madeleine is still alive and the abductor he says belongs to an European Peodophile net, is a meticulous man who abducted Madeleine to order. This was arranged in the UK. The abductor was seen in Seville 7 days before Madeleines disappearance and has not been seen since. Madeleine is now a ‘very hot product’ so he awaits instructions. Antonio believes the key is in the Algarve and that the parents are vital “to clarify it”. Not because they saw anything to do with the abduction but because they can help with understanding the reason why. Antonio is available to go to Luz but awaits until he can speak with the parents in the presence of PJ and a lawyer.

[colomom]

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=246062&idselect=10&idCanal=10&p=200

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The Moroccan minister of the Interior yesterday promised to the parents of Madeleine “total availability” of the authorities of that country to collaborate in the inquiry of the abduction. Although this guarantee, and according to PJ, had not yet arrived Portugal the cassettes of the service station, next to Marraquexe, where a Norwegian tourist guarantees to have seen the child

[colomom]

http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/65604861/Zoektocht_met_speurhonden_na_tip_Maddie.html?p=6,1

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Telegraaf reporters involved in search
Translation of Telegraaf article this morning:

title: SEARCH WITH SNIFFER DOGS AFTER TIP MADDIE
by Jonan van den Dongen and Coen Springelkamp.
PORTIMAO (Portugal) thursday.
Yesterday detectives of the Portugese police, together with Telegraaf reporters, have collected possibly important evidence to do with the disappearance of the British girl Madeleine McCann (4).

It was too late yesterday to go in search for her body. Today there will be intensive searching on the place where Maddie would be. "We are doing everything possible to check the information from the Netherlands" according to police spokesman Olegario Sousa (sic).
The reporters found a towel in the area where, according to an anonymous source who delivered a letter and detailed maps to the Telegraaf this week, Madeleine would be.
The towel possibly belongs to a man who, according to a witness, was seen on the place of her disappearance carrying a child wrapped in a blanket. The reporters brought 5 Portugese detectives to the exact spot, followed by cameramen of a portugese tv network.

SERIOUS
With the action the PJ made clear that the take the anonymous tip seriously. The British girl is said to lie buried under branches and/or stones, at a distance of 15 KM from the appartment where she disappeared.
Yesterday afternoon the PJ brought in both reporters for questioning at the Faro airport. In Portimao they explained to Guillermino Encarnacao (investigation leader) the anonymous letter shows significant similarities to the letter that pointed very closely to the spot where the murdered Belgium girls Stacy and Nathalie were found.
The Telegraaf has chosen consiously not to publish the letter and the exact location to not to hinder the investigation. Immediately after receipt the letter has been delivered to the Amsterdam police. Yesterday a color scan was sent to Portugal. According to police spokesman Gerard Vrooland that took so long because "safeguarding biological traces is a time consuming procedure".
The Telegraaf newsroom was flooded with telephone calls from the world press yesterday. Among others the Arab tv network Al Jazeera, the BBC, newspapers from Belgium and Portugal asked for information.

[colomom]

http://noticias.sapo.pt/lusa/artigo/RC8M00kjMqZJlvR44Ahiaw.html

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Just in on Lusa:
"...the police has guaranteed today that they are still evaluating this new clue (the letter), and a definitive decision will be made in the next few hours.
Olegário de Sousa has admitted that there may be investigations on the ground in the next few days.
Olegário: "we are working on the lead, but it takes time due to the extense and difficult area. The location on the map is not precise, it covers a very extense area."
Dozens od foreign and national reporters have gathered around in the area.

[colomom]

in Diario de Noticias:

http://tinyurl.com/22lreg

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On the night Madeleine McCann was abducted, on May 3, over 20 persons may have entered the appartment where she spent her holidays with her parents, at the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz, "destroying evidence and decisive, fundamental clues" for Policia Judiciaria (PJ) to identify who kidnapped the girl.

This situation was admitted yesterday to Diario de Noticias by the PJ's spokesman, Olegario Sousa, according to whom "the presence of so many persons, especially in the bedroom where the child slept with her siblings, could, at least, have complicated the Scientific Police's work and, in the utmost, have destroyed evidence. It may even have been fatal for the investigation."

As DN could find out, right after Gerard and Kate McCann detected the disappearance of Madeleine, around 9.30 pm, over 20 persons entered the room, between friends and family who were there on vacation with the couple and their children, and also many tourists and resort employees, who, out of natural worry and anxiety, searched everywhere for the british child, rummaging beds, cupboards and other furniture, opening and closing doors and windows.

Although the appartment was immediately sealed that night by the authorities, this situation ended up eliminating possible traces of the passage of the person who took the british girl from the appartment.

On the other hand, a large part of the forensic tests that were done in the appartment where the McCanns were staying, in the villa where the mother of Robert Murat (the only arguido in this case for suspicion of kidnapping) lives, which is 200 m from the spot, and in their vehicles, and in other locations, have not yet reached the hands of the investigation's coordinators, contrary to what was said by a national daily newspaper yesterday, said Olegario Sousa to DN yesterday.

[colomom]

Ocean Club apartment Sold - Translation
http://tinyurl.com/3bpjhv
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[colomom]

this morning in Correio da Manha:

http://tinyurl.com/2cadpc

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Danilo arrested for extortion

The Sotogrande lead in the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is closed. The Policia Judiciaria has left the terrain and spanish Justice yesterday imposed coaction measures on the couple that was arrested in the andalucian luxury resort: Danilo Chemello is in preventive prison and Aurora Vaz Pereira was put in conditional freedom.

Both stand accused of attempted extortion. They wanted the prize for information, but no clues were found to the english girl’s whereabouts.

Danilo Chemello, 61, was presented for judicial interrogation at the court in San Roque yesterday (…) He left the tribunal in preventive custody and was taken to Botafuego Prison, in Algeciras.

(…)

The court in Madrid decided to postpone Chemello’s extradition. The italian returned to Algeciras in the early morning and was presented to the court in San Roque yesterday, to respond for his detention in Spain.

Aurora Vaz Pereira, the 54-year old portuguese partner of the italian man, might have been instrumental in judge Ana Cabellos’ decision to impose preventive custody on Danilo.

The portuguese woman had been heard by the judge on Saturday, but had returned to the comissariat of the spanish national police without a coaction measure. The judge had postponed her decision, but yesterday called Aurora back into court for a hearing together with her partner. The confrontation lasted for about 3 hours and ended differently for both arguidos, who were accused of the same crime.

Aurora was sent free, only without her passport, and obliged to present herself periodically to authorities, a source with the Supreme Court of Andalucia, in Granada, told CM. According to a journalist who was at the door of the court in San Roque, the portuguese woman left in a discrete way, without saying a word and almost unperceived. She was taken by a police car to Sotogrande, specifically to the apartment the couple has rented in Valgrande resort.

Andalucia’s social services have apparently returned to Aurora the two children that were in the couple’s company when they were arrested. They are presumed to be an 8-year old girl and a 10-year old boy, children of the portuguese woman.

The McCann couple has already chosen a new home, where they will move in a few days with their twin children Sean and Amelie, according to Gerry’s diary on the internet. “We will stay in Portugal for the foresseable future, and we’re determined to return home with Madeleine”, the couple assures. Gerry and Kate explain that their decision to stay in the Algarve is also related to the fact that it facilitates their contacts with portuguese police, that keeps them updated with the investigation’s development. (…)

[colomom]

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published in Sol, on June 30, 2007
an article by Felicia Cabrita and Margarida Davim

Madeleine Case

Pact of Silence

Madeleine’s parents and the friends with whom they spent their holidays in PDL are suspects in the inquiry. There are contradictory versions about the night of the kidnapping, and an assumed pact of silence in the group

The beginning of June is flowing in a strange way in the Algarve. A chilly wind and overhead clouds help to fill the auditorium of Lagos, where a solidarity concert is being held for the missing english girl. It’s been a month since Madeleine McCann vanished without a trace.

A few kilometres from Lagos, in the Ocean Club resort at Praia da Luz, the faint illumination further densifies the climate. At the reception, which leads to the Tapas restaurant, there is nobody. Getting inside is easy.

A portuguese waiter, but with a british ‘behaviour’, strikes the first blow on the journalist’s plan: “We only serve dinner to the club’s clients”. “What about a drink?”. He says yes.

It’s 9.30 p.m. If we were to believe the several members of the McCann’s holiday group, and after several mismatching versions, at this time Madeleine was being carried out of her apartment by a dark-haired man, who would be around 35 years old.

From the same table where the group of nine had dinner on that evening, one tries, in vain, to observe the apartment’s front – a ground floor apartment that faces the restaurant. A linoleum screen on the side of Tapas and the corridor of bushes that follows the limits of the apartment’s back yards prevents any vigilance to that level.

The image of Madeleine – big blue, questioning eyes and an innocent smile, fixed on the photographic films – is always present. It doesn’t leave the conversations of whom passes by. One remembers the words that the mother, Kate Healy, is supposed to have said to a friend (and that the husband, Gerry McCann, did not know): “I had a bad premonition about my children, when I found out the Ocean Club had no baby listening service”.

The choice of Algarve as a holiday destination would come to change their lives. Everything was arranged with three other couples, with whom they used to travel. Some of them had recently been to Greece, with their children, and the Mark Warner agency, the same that prepared their trip to the Algarve, had done their itinerary for the islands. According to their reports, the hotel where they stayed had a baby listening service – a service that is assured by four or five members of staff who would control the children while the adults dined, by listening through doors and windows to confirm that everything inside was quiet.

At the Tapas bar, from bartenders to staff from the Kid Club, criticism is whispered: “We have a creche where they left their children for most part of the day, where they could be until 11.30 p.m. without spending another Euro. They could also have used our baby-sitters, who stay with the children in their rooms until 1 p.m. In this case, they would have to pay an extra fee, but these people looked like they could afford it”, an employee comments, concluding that “this was a very strange group, that never stayed with their children”.

The children’s routine

The story of Madeleine looks like a tangled ball of wool. In the last days of April, Kate and Gerry, both 39 and doctors, arrive with their friends in Praia da Luz. The weather is not very good, but the group makes the best of it. The children seem to exist outside of the adults’ world. In the morning, Kate would take Madeleine, almost 4, and the 2-year old twins, to the Kid Club. The other couples in the group did the same. While the little ones entertained themselves with collages and paintings, the group divides itself between tennis and jogging until lunchtime. In the creche, the girl’s picture is taken: “She was shy and had some difficulty in adapting to the group. She always stayed close to the english children she already knew”.

It is at lunchtime that the families socialize a bit. After a short nap, the children go back to the Kid Club, while the parents use the activities that the club offers. They only get to meet again in the late afternoon, when the children’s dinner is served. Before 8 p.m., Madeleine and her siblings, who seem to function like a clock, are already asleep. Half an hour later, the group of friends meets at Tapas. The staff remember that they only leave at midnight: “They were very lively and drank a bit too much. I didn’t even realize they had children, because I never saw them around”.

Mathew Oldfield, one of the elements of the group, is back in England. He reacts with surprise upon the contact of Sol, but he does not avoid the conversation: “We drank. We were on holidays. So what?”.

And thus the days followed one upon another, at the Ocean Club. The holiday week is almost over and the group’s spirit does not change. Nobody had noticed until then, how the children were kept at a distance.

The most reliable way to undrestand what happened on May 3, when Madeleine disappeared, is to analyze the various versions that emerged.

It would have been 10 p.m. when Kate decided to check the children at the apartment. This is the only moment in the story that gathers consensus. Madeleine had vanished from her bedroom and the twins were sleeping like nothing had happened. The mother was back at the restaurant in one leap. She was disoriented.

PJ called two hours later

In seconds, the resort is in turmoil. The group’s four men and the club’s employees check every corner. They seem to be oblivious of the essential: to call the authorities. GNR is the first to arrive at the scene, but the news only reach Policia Judiciaria (PJ) more than two hours later. The first explanations arise. Where were the parents when the child disappeared? Gerry explains that, inspired in the scheme that some of the friends had used on their holidays in Greece, the nine members of the group took turns in checking on the children with some regularity.

This is the beginning of a story that will change in many chapters. Gerry starts by saying that he first left the table to check on the children around 9.05 p.m. When he entered the apartment the children were fine, he just noticed that the door to their bedroom was partially open. He looked at the window, which was closed, just as the shutters, and relaxed.

Ten minutes later, his friend Jane Tanner, who went around the apartments, crossed ways with a dark-haired man who was walking in the opposite direction, carrying a child. She didn’t make any connections either.

A few minutes later, Mathew Oldfield enters the room, sees the McCann children fast asleep, and notices nothing out of the ordinary. It is at 10 p.m. that Maddie’s mother discovers her daughter has disappeared. The window was wide open and the shutters were up.

To GNR, who is in the area with sniffer dogs to search for the child, this is a highly unlikely scenario. One of the military assures: “This is an extremely silent area, where there are practically no passing cars. That shutter was very difficult to lift from the outside, and would have made a lot of noise. It would have been a lot easier to use the door, but there were no signs of a break-in”.

This was just one of the reasons why the group became suspicious in the eyes of the investigators. Russell O’Brien, Jane Tanner’s husband, is already back in England, but he knows he could be summoned back to Portugal for a deposition anytime. Over the phone with Sol, he tries to keep his british phlegm: “It is normal that we are suspects, and the DNA test is a consequence thereof. We were the closest people involved”.

The conversation always comes back to the same issue: the night of the disappearance. The account of that last dinner has disparate versions among the group’s members. Some swear that someone left the table every half hour to check on the kids; other reduce that time to half of it. Some say control is made window by window; others say the adults entered each other’s apartments.

One of the employees that was on duty that evening does not remember a lot of movement: “I only remember a tall, grey-haired man getting up once from the table”. It was Russell, who, two days earlier, also had attended dinner.

An aerobic instructor from the resort entertains the dinner guests at Tapas with a ‘Quiz’. At 9.30 p.m. the game ends, and Gerry invites her to their table, where she stays for half an hour. During that time, as she later confided to friends, nobody left the table, but one of the chairs was vacant. Najova Chekaya refuses to talk to Sol. And Russell, when the questions start to surround him, loses his sympathy: “I have nothing further to tell you. I am not going to dishonor the compromise I assumed with Kate and Gerry. They want to control all infornation that is disclosed”.

Gerry changes his version several times, but he maintains that the door to his children’s room was open. Mat revokes his first statement: when he entered Madeleine’s room, the door was open and there was more light, as if the shutters had been raised. Here starts to develop the theory that there was already someone inside the apartment. Which reinforces Jane Tanner’s version (that she saw a man carrying a child).

Only Jane saw the man carrying a child

But there is a witness whose deposition contradicts this theory. Jeremy Wilkins – a tv producer who had met Maddie’s father during their holidays and used to play tennis with him – was walking his eight months old son at that time. He met Gerry, who went out through the apartment’s back door after having checked on the children, and the two man exchanged a brief conversation. At that time, if one is to believe the first accounts, Jane would have left Tapas in the direction of the apartment’s main entrance, and would have crossed paths with both of them. “It was a very narrow road and I think it would have been almost impossible to walk by without me taking notice”, Jeremy says, pointing out the fact that he saw no man carrying a child, as Jane states.

But Jane continues to guarantee that, at the top of the street, she saw a man with a child in his arms.

Although the area is scarcely lit, and the situation did not make her suspicious at the time, she describes the beige trousers, the dark thick jacket and the black classic-style shoes in a detailed way. Once again, Jeremy disagrees: “If that happened, I would have likely seen it”.

On the next day, the media circus was fully installed. The first reports are on Sky News first thing in the morning, even before portuguese press takes hold of the story. Journalists and locals dispute the information. Robert Murat, the son of an english mother and a portuguese father, with little luck in business, does not waste the opportunity. He moves from failed businessman into the role of a translator for the press and the police. Some british journalists, after sucking him to the bones, start suspecting his availability.

The Murat contradiction

Contrarily to the GNR elements and the Ocean Club’s staff, who participated in the searches on the night before and assure they did not see Murat around, Gerry and some of his friends guarantee that he was there. And thus he becomes an arguido.

Gerry and Kate’s friends, who are interrogated tightly by the PJ over almost a month, refuse to clarify this contradiction, when asked by Sol. “We have a pact. This is our matter only. It is nobody else’s business”, says David Payne, another element with the group. Minutes after we tried to contact Kate, Gerry, in a fury, calls the Sol journalist: “What do you think you are doing? Do you think you’re better than the portuguese police? I’m going to forward your contact to PJ and you will have to explain yourselves”.


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PJ says ‘everybody is a suspect’

The director of the Policia Judiciaria in Faro, Guilhermino da Encarnacao, confirmed with Sol that “we do not discard the possibility to have the family and friends as suspects”. This is always done “without neglecting other clues. Everybody who was at the resort at the time are suspects”.

[colomom]

this morning in Diario de Noticias:

http://dn.sapo.pt/2007/07/06/sociedade/pais_madeleine_mudam_casa_discretame.html

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=5 post #71

Madeleine’s parents move house discreetly

The localization of the new villa that has now been occupied by the McCann couple in Praia da Luz, close to Lagos, is still being treated as taboo by Gerry and Kate, the child’s parents.

We could only establish that it is a villa, surrounded by vegetation, and away from indiscrete looks, given the fact that Madeleine’s parents demand a maximum of privacy at this time, after a long media exposure for which they contributed a lot themselves, in their attempt to recover their daughter. The couple travelled to several european destinies, and even to Morocco.

The McCanns and their twin children, Amelie and Sean, had to leave the apartment they were occupying in The Ocean Club, paid by the company that owns the resort, because its owners were going to spend their holidays there. The resort, in the algarvian area of Lagos, is almost fully booked, mainly with british tourists, after a period of decline when Madeleine’s case happened.

[colomom]

in Correio da Manha today:

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=252602&idselect=10&idCanal=10&p=200

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=9 post # 130

Alert in Belgium

Belgium and dutch police are on high alert, following the sighting of a girl that “strongly resembles” Madeleine McCann, the english 4-year old girl that disappeared from a resort in Praia da Luz, Lagos, 92 days ago.

A child therapist told police she saw a girl she believes to be Madeleine in the company of a couple in a restaurant in the belgium city of Tongeren, on the dutch border, near Maastricht. According to the online edition of english newspaper ‘Daily Mail’, the local authorities have emitted a national alert and released a drawing of the man who was with the child. He is approximately 40 years old, 1.80 m tall and speaks dutch. The woman is approximately 25 years old, has dark hair and a tan, and speaks english. The child was nervous and the three left in a black Volvo, a recent model with a belgium license plate that starts with the letters VUV.

Olegario de Sousa, the spokesman for PJ, told CM that no official information was received from the belgium police. PJ inspectors were yesterday in Praia da Luz for diligences.

[colomom]

in Sol on August 4, 2007:

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=9 post #132

a report by Felicia Cabrita with Margarida Davim
translation by summer


Looking for Maddie’s body

The investigations have returned to their initial course. Portuguese and british police search for the body of the child in the surroundings of Praia da Luz

“There are strong signs” that Madeleine, the english child that disappeared from Praia da Luz almost one hundred days ago, “is dead”, police sources have told Sol.

The 180º turnaround that the investigation by the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) from Portimao seems to have done in the past few days, even led the Attorney General, Pinto Monteiro, to postpone the making of an interview that had been requested by british media chain BBC – an interview that would be focusing on the fact that, so long after Maddie’s disapperance, the authorities still remain without real clues concerning her whereabouts.

Although an official source from the PGR justified the postponing of the interview with “agenda issues”, the moves by the PJ and some elements from the british police during these last days – accompanied by two dogs, in Praia da Luz – seem to indicate that the investigation is now centered on the McCann family and their group of friends.

Sol could find out that the english dogs are trained for different tasks. One, to detect human remains originating from dead flesh, and the other one to detect human blood or fluids. A specialist that was contacted by Sol explains that the technique of these animals rests on scientific bases, and that while “one of the dogs can distinguish between natural death or death by accident that does not involve bloodshed, the other one can diagnose whether someone died a violent death, with bloodshed or other spilled fluids”.

Tuesday night, a black and white thingyer spaniel that is trained to detect death, spent several hours in the apartment that the McCann family occupied in the Ocean Club resort, and from where Maddie disappeared on May 3. According to sources within the investigation, the dog marked the death of the child inside the apartment.

On the dogs’ trail

The english dogs do not contradict the clues that were detected by the sniffer dog that GNR sent to the location, on the day following the english girl’s disappearance. It’s an animal that only follows odours, and that “detected the movement of the child from the room to another point inside the apartment”, according to a source with the Guarda.

The same source said that “based on that signal, it was not possible to conclude whether the child was alive or dead – because a sniffer dog will smell both the living and the dead”.

Yet, outside the house, both through the windows that faced the Tapas restaurant – where the McCanns had dinner with their seven friends – and through the main door, “the dog lost the trail, as if the child had exited, for example, rolled up in a blanket”, that source said.

A team from Sol, on the terrain for the last two weeks, could observe the work of the thingyer spaniel from the british police, performing several diligences along the water in Praia da Luz and in a nearby valley.

The animal’s path, on Wednesday night, seemed to test the deposition from several witnesses that were heard by the PJ in late May – namely an irish family that have been living in Luz, and who, on the day that Maddie vanished, reportedly crossed ways with a man that carried a child that seemed to be asleep.

According to their deposition to PJ, Martin Smith, his wife and his children, after leaving the Kelly bar, which is located approximately 400 metres from the Ocean Club, around 9.50 / 10.00 p.m., saw an individual described as caucasian, measuring 1.70 – 1.75 m, walking towards the beach.

The irish man told Sol that he knew Robert Murat (the only arguido in the process) visually for years – and also remembered seeing the anglo-portuguese man in a bar that evening, “already a bit intoxicated”. Therefore, the irish dismissed the possibility that the person he saw carrying a child could be Murat: “If it was him, I guarantee to you that I would have recognized him”.

Concerning the clothes the man he saw on that night was wearing, Smith only refers the “beige trousers”, given the fact that his upper body was hidden by the child’s body, which was not covered. It is curious that one of the elements that formed the group of Maddie’s parents’ friends, guaranteed to PJ several days before Smith was heard, that - at a moment when she left the table to check on the group’s children - she had crossed ways with a man that was wearing trousers that fit the description that was also made by the irish man.

That individual was also carrying a sleeping child. And the witness, who even managed to see what pyjamas the child was wearing, just “thought it was strange that the child was barefoot and uncovered”. This witness said it would be 9.15 p.m.

Direct access to the PM

According to the course the PJ from Portimao is now conducting the investigation, and considering the trail that the british police’s thingyer spaniel tracked along the sea shore, the individual would have descended to Praia da Luz, where he could have disposed of Maddie’s body. Sol knows that the english team contacted Joao Alveirinho Dias, a professor at the University of Algarve and a specialist in oceanography, in order to collect information about the sea’s dynamics and the beach area where everything may have happened. The investigator, who was not briefed about the context of the police inquiries, told Sol that he was consulted on “the sand movements, where they come from and where they go to”.

The police investigation has therefore, and according to our sources, returned to its initial course, and it becomes increasingly clear, as Sol had reported previously, that there is no proof against Murat.

Yet, the british media continue to point a finger at the anglo-portuguese man, although the criminal investigation has returned to clues that relate to the group of friends of Madeleine’s parents.

A journalist with the Daily Express – who has repeatedly contacted Sol searching for new information on this case – recognized this week that it is “difficult for an english newspaper to adopt a critical tone concerning Madeleine’s parents”.

The Daily Express cited, in one of its last reports, the news that have been published by Sol, describing them as a “hate campaign” against the McCanns. The same journalist ended up confessing that “it’s the only way we can transmit your data”.

Sol knows that Gerry McCann has regular contact with Gordon Brown, the british Prime Minister. Clarence Mitchell – who was the first spokesman for the McCanns and is now in the press cabinet at Nr. 10, Downing Street – confirms those contacts. “I know there is a communication line between Gerry and Gordon Brown. I know they talk. But I don’t know what they talk about, because those are informal conversations”, he clarified, further adding: “The Madeleine case is treated whenever there are bilateral meetings between Portugal and the United Kingdom. Gordon Brown is sensitive to the case and wants it solved quickly”.

[colomom]

today in Correio da Manha:

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=253299&idselect=181&idCanal=181&p=0

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=13 post #180

Investigation: Police makes examinations again
Interrogated separately

PJ interrogated the McCanns again yesterday and collected their depositions. The couple was heard separately: first her. The investigators want to confirm precisely at what time the child disappeared and, mainly, who was the last person to see Madeleine McCann alive, and at what time.

PJ insisted with Maddie’s parents yesterday about the mystery that surrounds the three hours on the day of the crime, between 6 and 9 p.m., that are situated between the last time the child was seen, and the moment when her absence was alerted to.

It is not known whether there were contradictions to the former inquisitions but, according to a source that is close to the investigations, the couple will be heard again within days.

By the end of yesterday afternoon, the Policia Judiciaria examined once again some objects that were collected from the vehicles, in the Portimao parking lot, although the car that was used by the McCanns had been returned to them during the morning.

CM knows that yesterday’s inquirition was not in the frame of normal contacts that are held on a weekly basis between the police and the girl’s family – even more so as these are held at the consulate, and always on Thursdays. Yesterday’s interrogation was held in PJ’s offices in Portimao.

A police source that was contacted by CM guarantees that there is no listening into the phone calls, and there is no register of suspicious email messages between the McCanns and their family in the UK. According to some news, those conversations between Maddie’s parents and members of their family would indicate the child was dea. “This is not true”, a source with the investigation tells CM.

With the investigation on a new course, PJ awaits the result of testing that is being performed simultaneously in Portugal and England. A part of the residues that were collected is being analysed by a laboratory in Birmingham, in the UK, which usually assists the british police. “We confirm news that we are analysing some samples”, a spokesperson for the british forensic science services has told Lusa, adding that the laboratory, which is managed by british governemnt, is the main service provider for the scientific analysis of evidence to the english and welsh polices, having the capacity of dealing with tens of thousands of cases per year.

The equipment that is available allows the british forensic scientists to extract the genetic profile from a blood sample in just 24 hours. After obtaining that DNA, the lab can compare it with other persons’ DNA – in this case, that of Madeleine McCann or her family.

The DNA that is identified through that sample, or residue, of blood that was obtained inside the apartment where Madeleine was last seen, will also be compared to the approximately 4 million genetic profiles that are in the british database – a normal procedure in the UK that will allow to know whether an individual that has been referenced for any crime has been inside that house.

In the case of individuals from other countries, DNA can then be confronted with genetic databases of those states, which are eventually connected to this disappearance. There is no genetic database in Portugal.

Abandoned possibility

The possibility that Madeleine McCann was thrown into the sea was considered in the first days that followed her disappearance. The Navy searched the sea close to the cliffs in the area of Praia da Luz. That possibility was dismissed by authorities a long time ago.

If the english child drowned, the body would float, in a period of 8 days, and would be washed up the coast. (…)

If she had been thrown into the sea already lifeless, the body would float and come to shore, or it would be pushed out to sea at a speed that could never surpass 1,5 miles per hour – according to a source with the Navy. It would hardly be missed by the intense surveillance scheme that was put in place on the days after the disappearance. (…)

If a dead body is thrown into the sea with weights, it could be on the bottom during the entire decomposition process. This is a possibility that is still open (…) But a military source confided to CM, that “if the police had a strong conviction on the sea, it would have mobilized adequate means”. The Hydrographic Institute, for example, owns robots that can detetc a body that is tied to the sea bottom. Those means have not been dislocated to the Algarve.

(…)

Inspectors in parking lot

PJ inspectors returned yesterday to the underground parking lot in Portimao where they had analysed automobiles the day before, in terms of the investigation.

Around 6.45 p.m., approximately six inspectors with forensic equipment suitcases went down into the parking lot. The policemen were followed by the coordinator of the Criminal Investigation Department from PJ in Portimao, Goncalo Amaral, and the national assistant director, who is responsible for the Faro Directory of PJ, Guilhermino Encarnacao. The directors were underground for a brief time, having left through the access ramp around 7.20 p.m., without comments.

In that parking lot, in the fourth and last subterranean level, ten cars were analysed, which belong to Robert Murat, to family and friends and also to the McCanns themselves. (…)

[colomom]

in Sol paper edition, August 18:

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=17 post #242

New contradictions in Maddie’s case

By Felicia Cabrita, with Margarida Davim
Translation by summer

The version that the McCann couple and their group of friends have been giving about what happened on the night that Madeleine disappeared, is shaken by new testimonies that were collected by Sol.

The English started by saying they took turns every 15 minutes in order to, through the windows of the rooms where the children were sleeping, listen if anything abnormal was happening. This ‘vigilance’ system, which they assure was efficient throughout a week of holidays, is questioned by an English citizen who lives in the apartment above the one that was occupied by Kate and Gerry McCann.

Employees deny Russell

Senn told Sol that, on the night before she disappeared, Maddie cried for quite some time, calling out ‘daddy, daddy!’.

Also the table waiters that were working in the resort’s restaurant – the Tapas, where the group of friends had dinner that night – didn’t notice much movement of checking on the children. One of them guaranteed to Sol that, since the beginning of dinner (which started between 8.30 and 9 p.m.), only two men got up, almost simultaneously.

One of them was Russell O’Brien, one of the doctors of the group, who was absent for most of the dinner and who returned to the table 5 minutes before Kate went to her apartment and noticed Maddie was missing. Russell then explained that his daughter was sick, and even “vomited so it was necessary to change her bed sheets”. One of the employees of the Ocean Club, who was heard by Sol this week, contradicts his version: “If that had happened, he would have to ask the housekeeping service for some clean sheets, which did not happen”.

During the short hour that dinner lasted, the group asked for, and consumed at their table, eight bottles of red wine and six of white wine, according to the restaurant’s records.

GNR was on location since 11 p.m. With the help of a member of staff from the Ocean Club, who helped as a translator until 4 a.m., they collected the first reports. Although Maddie’s mother guaranteed that, when she noticed her daughter was missing, the shutters of the room where the children were sleeping were up and the window was open, the members of this police force did not detect any clues to indicate that these had been forced.

On the other hand, the resort’s employee guaranteed to Sol that “the shutters are so old and simple” that, with the sun exposure they were subject to in these 14 years, if anyone did “try to open them from the outside, they would have broken”. The main door to the apartment didn’t show any signs of a break-in, either.

The McCann family were never alone. Dozens of members of staff at the resort appealed to the local population, mostly English citizens, and the surrounding areas were searched thoroughly. The couple was busy making phonecalls.

Aurelio Guerreiro, the owner of a bar at the marina in Vilamoura, was close to being involved. His testimony to Sol confuses the McCanns’ time version. Sometime between 0.30 and 1 a.m., Aurelio got a phonecall from an old customer: Pat Perkins, the human resources director from a public English organism. She calls him, upset: “She told me the daughter of british friends of her, who were vacationing close to Lagos, had disappeared over 3 hours ago, that they were completely alone and that nobody was helping them to search for her”.

Kate McCann had just informed her parents of the tragedy. Pat, who lives in Liverpool, confirms: “I was at Kate’s parents’ house at that moment. But I have nothing further to add”.

Guerreiro tells what he did after Pat called him: “I understood she wanted me to go meet them, but I was an hour away from their location, and I could not close the bar, I decided to call the police”. After PJ in Portimao confirmed to him they already knew about the case, Aurelio phoned Kate, at the number that Pat had given him: “An English man picked up. He thanked me, and contrary to what I expected, he didn’t ask me for anything”.

Minutes after this phonecall, Gerry asks for the priest from the Luz parish to be called for him – but the Ocean Club staff members refused, given the time it was. At four in the morning, Jane was asking a member of GNR: “Have you cut off all the roads already?”. Minutes later, Gerry, given the fact that the priest didn’t appear, asked another element of GNR to show him the way to the church.

Couple wants to return to England

As Sol has been reporting, the clues that were collected by PJ with the help of English police, lead to a turnaround in the investigation. One of the dogs used by the british ‘marked’ Maddie’s death inside the apartment. On the other hand, blood was found inside the bedroom where the McCanns’ children were sleeping, which has been dissimulated with the help of whiteners, and is still being analyzed in a british laboratory.

The path that the English dogs followed 2 weeks ago, in the surroundings of the apartment, exclude the possibility that the child was abducted and is still alive. The dogs walked the only two paths that Maddie’s family and friends knew.

One of them leads to Luz beach. The irish citizen Martin Smith, a local resident for years, told Sol that on that night he crossed ways with a man who was carrying a child, with the characteristics of Maddie. That path was searched by police and other people. Six days after the disappearance, Gerry, who was accompanied by an unknown individual, also seemed to participate in the searches, but on the opposite side of the way the dogs walked.

Parents are leaving

Throughout this week, much was speculated in the press. ‘The Times’ published that the blood that was collected inside the apartment is not Maddie’s but “from an individual from the European northeast”. The English lab denied this, stating that they have not finished their work yet. The McCanns were saying yesterday in several newspapers that they were considering going back to their country.

[colomom]

in Sol paper edition on August 18:

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=17 post #243

How Murat was ‘betrayed’

By Felicia Cabrita
Translation by summer

Robert Murat, the only arguido in the case of Madeleine, became the character of a dark movie as quickly as he left the scene.

“The saddest part of this is that I offered to help finding the girl, and my life was destroyed for that. What planet are we living on?”. The spear that would hit the anglo-portuguese man was thrown at random. On the night of May 3, around 9.20 pm, Jane Tanner, a friend of the McCann couple, under the excuse that her daughter was sick, left the restaurant where they were dining, and walked towards the apartments where the group’s eight children were sleeping. On her path, she crosses ways with Gerry, who is talking with a friend. Jane assures that, when she reached the street that is perpendicular to the one where the two men were located, and which leads to the apartments, she saw a man carrying a girl.

This testimony is shattered by another English tourist, Jeremy Wilkins, who was on that street then. He guaranteed to Sol that he saw neither Jane nor any man carrying a child.

But Jane’s words were taken seriously by the Policia Judiciaria, and were joined by others. The direction of the street in which the man that was carrying a child was walking to, ended at Robert Murat’s house.

According to a member of the Ocean Club’s staff who was helping out as an interpreter that night, between the group of nine friends and the GNR, the McCann couple didn’t stop calling journalists. They were moving influences in the british media, where they also have relatives. Around 6 a.m, Sky News breaks the first news. The abduction idea is launched.

Robert Murat wakes up three hours later. His mother, Jennifer, had already been alerted by one of her daughters in England to turn on Sky. After breakfast, they decide to search the garden that is next to the Ocean Club.

“While we were searching, an English man walked by. I asked him a few questions about what was going on. I told him I spoke Portuguese and English, and that if they needed me, I was at their disposal” – Murat recalls. And that is the way it happened: on the same morning, he presented his services to GNR. On the street, he met Gerry and Kate, and from minute to the next he was the authorities’ interpreter, and assisted in the first statements from the parents and other witnesses.

Around noon, Jo Wheeler, a journalist for Sky in the area of weather forecast, who lives in the Algarve, calls him: “She wanted me to work as an interpreter for the team that was about to arrive. I refused, because it didn’t seem correct to be helping the family and the police, and working for the media”.

Finally, it’s Gaynor Jesus, an anglo-portuguese woman, jobless and a childhood friend, who accepted. “I know very well she was one of the persons who framed me”, Murat says. The Murat family has roots in Portugal since the 18th century (as wine merchants, in Oporto). The parents took up residence in the Algarve in the sixties, and opened a real-estate agency in Lagos. Robert was born in 1973, with a problem in his right eye’s retina (which ends up going blind).

The searches for Madeleine continue. With the help of the press, the sequestration theory is installed, connected to an international pedophile network.

Next Sunday, Robert was sitting on the boardwalk next to the apartment where Maddie disappeared from, when Lory Campbell, a reporter for the Sunday Mirror, accompanied by another English journalist, and pretending not to know how the three Portuguese police forces function, talks to him: “I was talking with them for 5 minutes, when I suddenly noticed that the photographer from the Mirror was taking pictures of me”.

Hours later, it’s Ian Woods, an anchor from Sky, who comes closer. Robert has one flaw, he speaks too much. And he says a fatal phrase: “You know, this affects me very much, because I’m divorced and I have a daughter who is almost the same age as Madeleine”. Woods asks for his full name. Filled with the spirit of the police investigation, Robert becomes suspicious: “I told him my name was Rob and I ended the conversation”.

The next day, Lory Campbell makes a denunciation to the police in Leicester, the McCanns’ city: she had discovered a suspect. Not only did Robert refuse to tell the journalists his full name, but he was also concerned about being photographed. Lory finishes: “He made a great show by calling his daughter in front of the reporters”.

The police process is rapidly clogged up by denunciations from several journalists and anonymous sources about Robert’s behaviour: “To this day, I don’t understand how I was placed in this, but someone was very interested in finding a culprit rapidly”. The next day, he is at Baptista supermarket, when Gaynor Jesus walks in, whom he hadn’t seen in years. Half joking, the childhood friend tells him: “Do you know that among the journalists, you’re being mentioned as the main suspect”. Robert also laughed.

Seven days later, following a search on his house – where they only found a vi-brator, batteries and a literary text on Casanova – the Public Ministery decides there are strong suspicions that Murat could be Maddie’s kidnapper. Gaynor Jesus, who is still working as Sky’s interpreter, is interviewed by Ian Woods and uses Robert’s blindness for a macabre portrait: “When we were kids, while playing, he had a glass eye that he would hold in his hand to scare us”.

Contacted by Sol, members of the GNR who were on location on the night that Maddie disappeared guaranteed they didn’t see Murat at the time. That version is confirmed by several English citizens, who live in the area and participated in the searches.

But three members of the McCanns’ group – who started out by saying they didn’t see anything or anyone suspicious that night – recover the press’ speech. When, approximately a month ago, Russell O’Brien, Rachel and Fiona were confronted with Murat at the PJ, they repeated the information that had been published by the media. According to a source that watched the confrontation, Russell guaranteed that Murat had told him: “I’m helping because I’m divorced and I have a daughter who is the same age”. And Fiona assured (although it was nighttime): “I’m certain it was him because he has a weird eye”.

To Robert, today, revolt has replaced his fears: “This is not going to remain this way”.

[colomom]

this morning in Jornal de Noticias:

http://jn.sapo.pt/2007/08/19/policia_e_tribunais/cao_reaccao_forte_dentrodo_carro_usa.html

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=17 post #245

Dog had strong reaction inside the car that was used by the McCanns

The Policia Judiciaria (PJ) knows, for about 15 days now, that Kate and Gerry intend to go back to Leicester, the city where they live in England. A source connected to the investigation guaranteed, yesterday, to JN, that during one of the informal meetings that have been held with the investigators, the McCann couple announced they were going back home by the end of this month.

The revelation that Gerry made to JN two days ago, that the family would have to go home because of the two-year old twins needing stability, did not catch the investigators by surprise, who knew of the couple’s intentions for some time. “They are witnesses, so they can be here or at home”, the source explained.

The McCanns’ announcement of their return appeared at the same time that a sniffer dog from the English police had a “strong” reaction inside the vehicle that the couple rented after their daughter, Madeleine, disappeared. A reaction that left the investigators intrigued.

The Renault Megane was analyzed for a long time, over a week ago, by the technicians from the Scientific Police Lab, who collected some residues that are being analyzed and which may help to explain whether the vehicle is connected to the girl’s disappearance or not. The fact is that the ‘springer spaniel’ Eddie, which immediately detects cadaver odor, had a very strong reaction – that the investigators try to understand – inside the car, given the fact that Kate and Gerry occupied the vehicle two or three days after their daughter disappeared from the bedroom where she was sleeping, on May 3, in the apartment at the Ocean Club (Praia da Luz).

As JN reported, the dogs also had strong reactions inside the apartment that the McCanns occupied during their holiday week, and at other locations in Praia da Luz.

The blood residues that were found in the living room, which were detected by the other dog, Keela, are still being analyzed by the technicians at the Birmingham forensics institute. The results should reach the investigators at any moment, after the deadline that was estimated by the technicians has been surpassed. Contrary to what had been foreseen, the revelation of the analyzes’ conclusions have been systematically postponed by the british, due to the degradation and contamination of the collected residues, almost three months after the child disappeared.

While they way for the results, the investigators are still performing some diligences, and for tomorrow they scheduled a new inquiry from a witness, who had already been heard. Pamela Fenn, 70, who resides in the apartment above the one that was occupied by the McCanns, said in May, when she was heard by the inspectors for the first time, that during the week of holidays, she heard children crying and someone shouting “daddy, daddy”. The woman, who lives alone in Luz, will clarify some doubts. The possibility that the McCanns and their friends, during their week of holidays, left the children alone asleep while they were dining in the “Tapas” restaurant at the resort, is still being investigated, as are the contradictions in several depositions.

[colomom]

in Diario de Noticias, August 20:

http://dn.sapo.pt/2007/08/20/sociedade/pj_que_sangue_e_chave_investigacao.html

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=17 post #251

PJ says blood is not key to investigation

The results from lab tests that are being performed in Birmingham, in the UK, to blood samples that were detected by English dogs on a wall and on a curtain of the apartment where the McCanns were spending their holidays, which PJ awaits at any moment, and which could be known today, nevertheless “are not” the key to the investigation.

More important to Policia Judiciaria, according to DN’s information, should be the phone listening and the interception of e-mails, as well as the results of biological residues that were also found by the English dogs in various vehicles, among which is the one that was used by the McCann couple and by one of their friends.

The results of forensic testing, which have been awaited since last week, may be know officially today.

Among the new inquisitions that Portuguese criminal investigation police prepares to do today, is the neighbor of the apartment from where Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3.

British citizen Pamela Fenn, who is in her seventies, and who will be inquired today, from 10 p.m., at the Portimao Criminal Investigation Department of Policia Judiciaria (PJ), as a witness in the “Madeleine case”, considers it “Very strange” that the parents of the child that vanished from the Ocean Club resort, at Praia da Luz, close to Lagos, never talked to her, “asking if I knew anything, given the fact that I live in an apartment that is right above the one where the family were spending their vacation”. And she is still more surprised for having heard, “two nights before” Madeleine disappeared, “a child yelling “daddy, daddy”, while the McCann couple was dining out.

Used to the tranquility of her home and to living a life without problems, Pamela Fenn has already confessed to a friend she now feels “nervous and stressed”, at a time when police investigations intensify following leads to establish what, actually, happened on that night in the apartment where Maddie was with her two twin siblings. “Nothing like this had ever happened to me, and I don’t want to become a celebrity”, the witness said, who also doesn’t understand the fact that Madeleine’s mother, in the middle of the uproar of searching for the girl, refused her awailability to “call the police”.

The PJ’s clues continue to point at elements in the group of friends of the McCanns as possibly being decisive to the result of the investigation.

On the other hand, two months later, PJ closed in again, last week, on the residents of an area that is close to the center of Praia da Luz, near the one where Serguei Malinka lives, the Russian computer expert who is also a witness in the “Madeleine case”, mainly for having set up the internet site of a real estate company that is owned by Robert Murat, the only arguido until now, for being suspected of the child’s abduction.

[colomom]

in Correio da Manha today (Aug 24):

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=20 post #286

English dogs denounced residue
Blood found in the McCanns’ van

The Policia Judiciaria collected a residue which the English dogs identified as being blood, in the car that was rented by the McCanns. The biological sample was sent to the Birmingham lab, but the result is not known yet.

The collection of the sample has confused the investigation. This is because the car was rented by the McCanns over a month after Madeleine disappeared, which means the child could never have traveled in the vehicle. And in doubt of what residue this is – if it really is human blood, if it is possible to define a genetic profile, if it coincides with the 4-year old child -, the investigators keep all scenarios open. Nobody assumes publicly that the parents are suspects, but the possibility of their involvement is not being dismissed either.

As CM could further discover, at least one more organic residue was collected in the car of one of the family’s friends. It is unknown, in this case, whether it is a blood trace or some other residue, like saliva or even a blood stain.

The discoveries were made by the English dog, which is a specialist in the detection of residues, during the intense searches that were performed on all the vehicles of persons that could be related to the McCanns in any way. Robert Murat and his mother also saw their cars being inspected, but everything indicates that nothing relevant was found by police authorities.

Mosaic taken from bedroom

The second residue, which is also presumed to be blood because it was detected by the English dog, was found in the apartment where the girl disappeared from. CM knows that the residues were on the floor, but invisible to the naked eye. The tiles had to be removed from the apartment so the residue could be collected and sent to England.

It is also unknown what the exams’ result is: is the blood from Madeleine, from a stranger or from a sexual predator that is referenced on the sophisticated English database? Or is it not even human, or not identifiable, because the trace is so tenuous that it is not possible to extract a genetic profile?

There are many doubts and the impasse is increasingly evident. Although Policia Judiciaria does not depend on the results in order to strengthen the death theory that has been constructed for several weeks, these might be fundamental, if they point at a specific suspect.

The collected samples

The English dogs arrived in Portugal during the month of July. They are both specialists in finding residues, the first in blood residues, the second in the presence of cadavers. The animals remained in our country for approximately 15 days and checked the entire area that surrounds the Ocean Club. Besides the cars and the apartment, they found death odors on the beach.

Dog became nervous upon entering apartment

The dog that is specially trained to detect the odor of cadavers was very nervous when he entered the apartment from where Madeleine disappeared. The animal immediately ‘called’ his keeper, who understood his signs as the detection that, at that spot, a cadaver had been present. The discovery, if confirmed, also indicates that the body would have remained on that location for at least two hours, after death. Specialists say that only after that amount of time the odor becomes detectable.

Trail ends at the beach, south of the Ocean Club

The authorities walked the dogs at the surroundings of the Ocean Club. The trail that was defined by the dog that detects cadaver odors ends at the beach, south of the resort. CM knows that the policemen opened holes so the odor, in case the body was buried, would become detectable, and the dogs nervousness was evident. The area was then searched, but nothing found. The trail that was found by the dog matches the theories that were presented by the South-African specialist that was hired by the family.

(…)

Silent Lab

The Forensic Science Service (FSS), in Birmingham, UK, does not offer an explanation for not having yet concluded the tests that were performed on the material residues that are linked to the Maddie case, which they received from Portuguese authorities.

Yesterday, CM searched for that answer with the communications cabinet of the lab, but no clarification was possible. The FSS is a unit with public capitals. It is independent from any police or system, but gives priority to services that involve the British polices.

(…)

The witnesses that shake the friends’ group version

The contradictions that were found in the versions of the group of friends of the McCann couple have mainly been evidenced by depositions from Pamela Fenn, a neighbor of Gerry [and] Kate in the Ocean Club apartment, and from Dianne Webster, 63, the mother of Fiona Payne, who was present at the dinner of May 3 with her husband.

Pamela Fenn was heard by PJ on Monday for 4 hours, and her deposition shows some important details. The most relevant one is in the difference of 40 minutes between the moment when she offered to call the police for Kate McCann, who then said she had already done so, and the registered time of the call to GNR, informing of Madeleine’s disappearance. This witness, who was counseled by PJ not to make any statements to the media, also said she heard the child crying for her father, on the eve of her disappearance.

Dianne Webster is also a witness of some importance. The version that was presented by Maddie’s parents and by other members of the group, that there was a kind of rotation in the checks on all of their children, who had stayed each in their apartment, was not confirmed by Dianne Webster. In the version that she told the investigators, Dianne Webster, the grandmother of two of the children that were at the Ocean Club, did not confirm that organization of the couples to check their children in the apartments, and said each was responsible for ‘watching’ their own children. There are also mismatching versions about who got up during dinner to go to the bedrooms.

The detail that allegedly 14 bottles of wine were consumed at dinner by those nine persons is neither confirmed nor denied by the PJ’s investigators that were contacted by CM, who just stated: “It’s not in the case file”. At the present state of investigations it is not dismissed as a possibility that it may be essential to hear the elements of the group again, which is composed by couples Russell O’Brien and Jane Tanner, David and Fiona Payne, Rachel and Matthew Oldfield, Kate and Gerry McCann.

English conspiracy admitted

The possibility is put between ‘clenched teeth’ and is not clearly assumed. But it is starting to ‘go around’ the heads of policemen who, over the last three months, have committed body and soul to clarifying the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

The results of analyzes to residues that were found in Portugal were sent to England, but British authorities failed to explain the delay of the answer. There is no justification for the absence of preliminary results of exams whose conclusion date was set at between 6 and 14 days. It has been 17 and news coming from England leave nobody at rest. On a daily basis, newspapers report imminent operations, point to suspects, seem to be involved in a “giant machine” whose sole purpose is to prepare British population for the possibility that the crime is going to be ‘in house’.

From the initial theory of a kidnapping in an “almost third-world” country, where policemen were inefficient and children are not safe, the British media now turn to the possibility that it may have been an accident. And newspapers that are generally considered more “rigorous” – the case of ‘The Times’ is evident – even present results of exams that the Portuguese police still does not know. It is being said that the blood that was found in the apartment belongs to a man and the lab announces it will open processes of violation of the judicial secret. But then they state the results are not ready, thus making it impossible to understand if the information is correct or not.

Several sources contacted by CM state their reservations on the events of recent days. And although they do not assume a “war” with British authorities, who until now have shown themselves as rather cooperative with the investigation in Portugal, they admit that in England there is a “damage control” policy. After all, the English have played tough, and a turnaround in the investigation could have devastating consequences even at government level. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, got directly involved in the case, not only expressing his solidarity with the McCann couple, but also through the direct involvement of people that are close to him, in aiding and supporting Maddie’s parents. On the other hand, British diplomacy itself opened the necessary channels for the McCanns to be received in several European countries and even by the Pope, in the Vatican.

Confusing the policemen there is also the alleged desire of the McCanns to return to their country. After insisting for three months that they would not return without finding their daughter, they now show themselves in the disposition of returning to England, while one of the justifications is perplexing, to say the least: they say they didn’t know that the police were searching for a body, when they asked PJ themselves, in July, to cooperate with a South-African professor who is a specialist in searching for cadavers.

[colomom]

this morning in Jornal de Noticias:

http://jn.sapo.pt/2007/08/25/policia_e_tribunais/chave_carro_mc_cann_acusou_odor_um_c.html

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=20 post #287

Key to McCanns’ car had cadaver smell

The English dogs that are helping Policia Judiciaria in the investigation of the Maddie case, have accused a strong cadaver odor on the car key that was used by the McCann couple. Besides that, the animals detected a blood sample in the trunk of the Renault Scenic van, which was inspected along with several other cars from Madeleine’s parents’ friends.

These details, which were discovered by JN, caused strangeness in the investigators’ minds, precisely due to the fact that, apparently, the vehicle only came into the McCanns’ hands several weeks after the disappearance, on May 3, at the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz, Lagos. Therefore, the persons that rented the car before are also being investigated. Several possible explanations are being considered. Including an eventual odor “contamination”, if the key used by Gerry came into contact with other materials which, in turn, had touched a cadaver.

Repeated exams

The blood stain that was found in the trunk is one of the samples which, together with the residues that were collected on a wall and on a curtain of the apartment where the family was staying, are being analyzed in a lab in Birmingham, England. The place where the blood trace was found, together with the reaction to the odor of death, from the other ‘springer spaniel’ dog, indicates precisely that a cadaver could have been in that car trunk.

The delay in the presentation of results (almost 3 weeks) is causing perplexity inside the investigation, and some consider the possibility that there is interference at the highest level of political powers in England, given the governmental involvement with the McCann couple – one of their aides is also an aide to the prime minister, Gordon Brown.

Yet, to some investigator, this delay “is not strange, for now”, given the fact that “there is the awareness that the samples were small and probably contaminated”. PJ was, however, already informed that the exams take a longer amount of time to be completed, especially in cases where the DNA samples match the genetic profiles that are being investigated. Contrary to this, they are faster. All proof and counter-proof must be repeated, so the results have minimal error margins. A source at the English lab guaranteed to JN that the analyzes are not concluded yet, and still does not reveal the date when the data will be communicated to English police who will then forward them to PJ.

[colomom]

in TVI online today:

http://www.tvi.iol.pt/informacao/noticia.php?id=847961

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=20 post #290

PJ investigates syringe with tranquilizers

The fact that the couple’s twin children never woke up on the night of May 3, before and after Maddie disappeared, is an issue

In the case of Madeleine, the PoliciA Judiciaria is investigating a syringe with tranquilizers that was found in a dresser in the child’s parents’ room. According to newspaper ‘Correio da Manha’, the issue is that the McCanns’ twin children never woke up on the night of May 3, after and before the disappearance of their sister Maddie.

The father, Gerry, guarantees it is normal that the children sleep without interruptions, dismissing the possibility that the two children were put to sleep with the injectable tranquilizers that the inspectors found in a dresser in the couple’s bedroom. Meanwhile, Robert Murat, the only arguido in the case is waiting to be cleared of the suspicions that are pending on him.

The results of the analyses on the blood samples, which the PJ says it needs to advance the interrogations, have not arrived yet from England.

[colomom]

in Correio da Manha today (Aug 29):

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=255793&idselect=181&idCanal=181&p=0

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=20 post #291

Suspicions: Gerry says the twins have deep sleep
Syringe in apartment is investigated

The twins Sean and Amelie never woke up with the turmoil on the night of the crime, before and after their sister was taken from the apartment, but Gerry McCann guarantees it’s normal and says his children usually sleep without interruptions. But Judiciaria found a syringe with tranquilizers in the dresser inside the medic couple’s bedroom, a source that is connected with the investigation told CM – and that is also being taken in account by the inspectors.

The father has been showing himself rather irritated about the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine, his 4-year old daughter who was taken from the apartment where they were spending their holidays at Praia da Luz, on May 3. He exploded as soon as journalists confronted him with the blood that was found on the walls, and tore off the microphone, leaving his wife alone in front of the cameras, in an interview for a program of Spanish channel Telecinco, which was broadcast on Saturday evening.

Gerry does not comment on the fact that he was the last person to see his daughter alive, when he visited her in the bedroom around 9 p.m. – but both he and his wife think it’s “normal” that their twin children kept sleeping on the night of the crime. “It’s very difficult for us, all this speculation, but what is certain is that our children were very tired, they’re very small and we can’t find out if they heard anything…”.

“We usually put them to sleep between 7 and 8 p.m. and they sleep all night without interruptions. It’s a routine we follow in the UK and which we’ve kept here”, the children’s father justified, thus dismissing the possibility that the twins, 2, were put asleep with the injectable tranquilizers that the inspectors found in a dresser in the parents’ bedroom.

Criticism and nervousness

At a time when the Judiciaria’s team is closing in and the investigation is advancing “increasingly in a circle”, as one of the inspectors told CM, Gerry throws critics at the PJ. “We want to reach the bottom of things and find Madeleine, but obviously there are no signs of any breakthrough – the Portuguese police does things in a very, very discrete way so people don’t know, and that is difficult for us, too”, the father says.

The doctor, who has stopped being called for weekly meetings with the PJ as long as the results of the analyses don’t arrive from England, also says that “the way the investigation is being handled is very different from that in the UK, where police likes to give information…”.

(article continues)

[colomom]

this morning in Correio da Manha:

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=255990&idselect=10&idCanal=10&p=200

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=20 post #293

Kate and Gerry McCann want to leave the Algarve
PJ confident in analyses’ results

All the analyses performed on samples that Judiciaria collected at the apartment where Madeleine was spending the holidays with her parents, at Praia da Luz, and in the McCanns’ and their friends’ car “are being done by the Birmingham lab, and there was no transference into another country”, a source with the PJ guarantees to CM. And “the results will appear”.

“It’s dozens of analyses”, an inspector reminded us, and “therefore we never had a deadline for the results’ date”. The lab work continues in England, contrary to what was reported – and “the complexity of the analyses does not allow for any pressure to be exerted on the scientists”, the same source says.

“Everything is being done” and the results will appear, PJ believes, while they proceed with the investigation “with less visible diligences”.

Meanwhile, Maddie’s parents are considering leaving the Algarve over the next two weeks, and the couple’s spokesperson, Justine McGuiness, has a reservation only until the 9th.

At the same time, relationships between a part of the British press and Justine are increasingly tense, with her being accused of benefiting “those who give nice news about Kate and Gerry”, reporters from English newspapers have told CM.

Some journalists have raised “less comfortable issues”, receiving from the spokesperson “a discriminatory treatment concerning information about the daily routines” of the McCanns.

In England, the directors of the school where Maddie studied decided to keep the hanger and the desk with the girl’s place.

[colomom]

Today in RTP online:

http://www.rtp.pt/index.php?article=296379&visual=16

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=20 post # 298

The director of Tal&Qual weekly newspaper guaranteed to Lusa that he never accused the McCanns of killing their daughter, clarifying that last week’s headline only transmits what the police believe.

The parents of Madeleine McCann have announced today, through BBC News, that they are going to sue Tal&Qual after this paper reported on news that indicate that the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) believed the couple killed Maddie accidentally.

“I keep the story, I won’t change a comma”, director Emidio Fernando told Lusa, clarifying that the newspaper “never accused anyone, just says what the police believes”.

Saying he is “absolutely tranquil” concerning a possible lawsuit, the weekly’s director said the McCanns’ intentions are “based on the articles that were published in English newspapers, which say that Tal&Qual accuses the family of a crime”.

“If we published the story, it’s because we are certain of it”, Emidio Fernando said, adding that “what the newspaper assumes is that the police believe” the possibility that the parents killed the English girl accidentally.

“I trust our sources and please note that I say sources in plural, because they are more than three”, the director said, who guarantees that the weekly he directs “never wrote anything that has not been confirmed, since this process [of Maddie’s disappearance] started”.

Although they have not received any notification about a possible defamation lawsuit that the McCanns have announced to be filing, the complaint is, according to BBC News, against the newspaper and the director.

[colomom]

Today in Correio da Manha:

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=256813&idselect=181&idCanal=181&p=0

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=21 post #312

Tests: There are partial results
Cadaver odor on Kate’s clothes

The English dog that is specially trained to detect the odor of cadavers found a trace of death on Kate McCann’s clothes, as well as on the soft toy that the mother of Madeleine has carried since the first hour, which she took to the Vatican and presents as one of the child’s favorite toys. The dog’s work has been recorded on video and can be presented as evidence by the Policia Judiciaria.

The dog was extremely nervous when he smelled a pair of jeans that was often used by Kate, and a shirt. These clues were collected in July – as CM could discover – at the same time that the animal detected the smell of death in the Ocean Club apartment where the child disappeared from.

A second dog that was used by the police, who specializes in finding biological residues like blood, sweat or saliva, also reinforced the signs of the first animal, as he detected what is presumed to be blood in the trunk of the car that was used by the McCanns – which was rented after the child’s disappearance, on May 3.

Meanwhile, CM knows that some of the tests that were performed on the collected residues are already in the investigators’ hands. The lab in Birmingham, England, has sent some elements, but not all the results are known yet. It is also not known when they started to arrive at the PJ, although several sources that were contacted by our newspaper guaranteed that only started happening this week.

The results’ arrival in Portimao may consolidate the investigators’ beliefs, which have been pointing for over two months at a scenario of the child’s death inside the apartment of Praia da Luz. The coming days will be decisive.

[colomom]

in Correio da Manha this morning:

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=256949&idselect=9&idCanal=9&p=200

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=22 post #325

Left PJ at 00.52 a.m.
Kate fears being a suspect

Kate McCann was heard as a witness. The diligence will continue, therefore the judicial secrecy prevents us from speakin.” This was the short way that lawyer Carlos Pinto de Abreu defined the situation of his client in the investigation into the disappearance of her daughter Madeleine on the night of May 3, from one of the apartments at the Ocean Club, in Lagos. It was 00.52 a.m. when Pinto de Abreu spoke these words, leaving behind 11 hours of interrogation, which will continue today.

Kate McCann left visibly shaken and walked to the lawyer’s car, in his company and in the company of Gerry McCann’s sister. Mr McCann had left the house where the couple is living, over an hour before, presumably to pick up his wife, but was not seen when she left the Policia Judiciaria.

The interrogation of Madeleine’s mother, which followed the results from biological samples that signaled Maddie’s blood in the apartment and cadaver odour on Kate’s clothes and on a soft toy that belongs to her daughter, marked a dramatic turnaround in the case. Up to one and a half months ago, it was centered on the possibility that Madeleine was abducted. Today, the British press highlights Kate’s fears, who is afraid of being seen as a suspect in her daughter’s death. Yesterday she left the PJ surrounded by security measures from the PSP’s Intervention Corps, who arrived on location before midnight in order to block the street and to create a security area.

[colomom]

in Jornal de Noticias today:

http://jn.sapo.pt/2007/09/07/primeiro_plano/pai_e_de_madeleine_apertados_pela_ju.html

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=22 post #326

Father and mother ‘squeezed’ by the Judiciaria

Madeleine’s mother returns to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) in Portimao today, in order to continue being inquired with evidence that was collected by the investigators, which point to her daughter Madeleine’s death, which include cadaver odours, found by English dogs on Kate’s clothes. PJ concluded today at 00.56 a.m. an interrogation of Kate McCann, as a witness, that lasted eleven hours, and focused on elements that were collected by PJ during the investigation, and on contradictions in her friends’ statements.

According to information that was collected by JN, among the evidence that the PJ has gathered for now, is a sample of biological residues that was collected from the trunk of the car that was rented by the couple several days after the girl’s disappearance. The Birmingham Lab has concluded, although not with 100% certainty, that the residue may belong to the girl. Yet, it remains unexplained why the sample was found in a car that was only used by Kate and Gerry after Maddie disappeared.

From the English lab, there are still results from other samples missing, namely from the Ocean Club apartment. Those that arrived along with analyses from residues that were found in the car – which refer to other locations that JN was not able to confirm – resulted inconclusive.

Today, after Kate, it’s Gerry’s time to be inquired again. Both may see their status in the process altered. JN knows that the passage into arguidos is a strong possibility, but everything depends on the answers that are given during the inquiries as witnesses.

During eleven hours of interrogation, Kate McCann was confronted with the evidence that was collected by investigators and with the deposition of Pamela Fenn, the British woman who lives above the apartment that the McCanns occupied at the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz. A testimony that is fundamental to the investigators, and which does not match the statements that have been made by Kate and Gerry, about the night of May 3, the day that Madeleine disappeared. The British woman says she heard the girl screaming for her father, two days before the disappearance.

The 70-year old neighbour also raised strong doubts about the checks that allegedlt were made by parents and friends, on that night, into the apartment, to see if the children were asleep, and how often. In her statement, Pamela has apparently said that, confronted with the couple’s distress, when they noticed the child was missing, she offered to call GNR, but Kate said she had already done so. The truth is that the phone call to GNR was made more than 40 minutes after the conversation that Pamela says she held with Kate.

This and other contradictions dominated the interrogation that the investigators performed on Madeleine’s mother. Kate arrived at PJ’s offices in Portimao before 2 p.m. Gerry was driving the car, which he parked on the opposite lane, kissed his wife and went back to Praia da Luz where the twins were in the company of his mother.

Minutes earlier, through the same door, entered the lawyer Carlos Pinto de Abreu, accompanied by another lawyer, who is the attorney’s assistant. The Portuguese lawyer accompanied Kate’s deposition and was inside the building until 9.40 p.m., when there was a break for dinner.

Upon leaving the PJ, Carlos Pinto Abreu told the journalists that Kate was heard as a witness, refusing to make any other comments due to “judicial secrecy”. Kate left in silence.

[colomom]

in Jornal de Noticias this morning:

http://jn.sapo.pt/2007/09/08/primeiro_plano/pais_recusam_falar_vestigios_carro.html

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=23 post #341

Parents refuse to talk about residues in car

The parents of Madeleine McCann were yesterday formally constituted arguidos from the moment they refused to talk about the residues that were collected by the Policia Judiciaria's investigation, which point at the death and the hiding of the cadaver of their daughter, who is missing since May 3, from the Ocean Club, at Praia da Luz, Lagos.

Separately interrogated for hours (Kate, 15 hours and Gerry, eight), they had to pass from witnesses into arguidos when questions were asked about the biological residues that were found in the trunk of a car that was hired by the couple, and which has strong probabilities of belonging to Maddie, as JN reported yesterday. Kate invoked her right to remain silent in order not to answer any more questions as arguida. She would have still justified the cadaver odors on her clothes, which were detected by an English dog, with the fact that she is a doctor and was in contact with dead bodies before going on holidays. Gerry, even as an arguido from 6.30 p.m. onwards, agreed to give further clarification. The father's questioning ended close to midnight.

Both arguidos were subject to a term of identity and residence - an automatic coercion measure - but, according to information that was collected by JN, they will be interrogated next week by the Public Ministery, who may decide to present them to a criminal instruction judge, in order to apply more serious coercion measures.

The process strategy of the McCann couple intrigued the investigators, although their procedure was legitimate. The issue is an apparent contradiction with the public statements of the couple who stated they intended to "cooperate" with the investigation.

As far as JN could discover, the investigation is now focused on clues for the crime of hiding a corpse, which was preceded by an episode that is still not clarified, but which points to the death of the girl as a consequence of an accident or a neglect situation.There is no evidence pointing to an intentional crime.

After two days of intense questioning on Kate and Gerry, the investigators will advance with more diligences next week. As JN could discover, some of the couple's friends, who spent their holidays at Praia da Luz, may be called back to the Algarve, but it has not been excluded that some policemen may go to England in order to perform interrogations.

[colomom]

from Expresso paper edition, Sept. 8:

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=24 post #346

A case filled with mysteries

At the beginning of the case, all clues pointed to the abduction thesis. But the presence of English sniffer dogs at the Ocean Club, on the 8th of August, two months after Maddie’s alleged disappearance, changed the investigation’s perspective. “The question of kidnapping started to be dismissed. Today, there are not many doubts about the homicide theory”, says Carlos Fonseca, the PJ inspector who investigated the ‘Lisbon Ripper’ case.

Although the suspicions about the parents are growing increasingly stronger, Kate and Gerry McCann will continue their “half insane” strategy of fleeing forward. “The couple will not hesitate to divert responsibility onto the Portuguese investigators”, he theorizes. To Carlos Fonseca, if it is true that Maddie’s parents are guilty, this should become a ‘case study’ to be used as an example for future investigations. A source at the Policia Judiciaria that was contacted by Expresso even compares this case with that of Vale e Azevedo. “After a first lie, it’s easy to tell another one. And so forth”. Possibly the couple never expected to be meeting Pope Benedict XVI one day.

Anyway, when the McCanns’ state of grace dissipated once and for all, last Friday, even the Vatican removed all records about Maddie’s disappearance from their official site.

Death odor in the car trunk

The scenario that was drawn by PJ increasingly points to the McCann couple’s implication in the disappearance of Madeleine, based on clues of the presence of a cadaver in the bedroom and in the trunk of a car that was rented by the two British 25 days after the child’s disappearance. This could be one of the big puzzles in this case. “I don’t believe it was the child’s body, but bloodstained clothes”, specialist Jose Manuel Anes suggests.

“There are strong clues that point to homicide”, a high-ranking official from Policia Judiciaria told Expresso, requesting anonymity. The same source revealed that Kate and Gerry McCann will be constituted arguidos, as suspects of being involved in the death, which is believed to be accidental, of Madeleine, who disappeared 128 days ago.

According to the PJ, the cadaver odour was detected on the floor of the apartment that was rented by the McCanns at Praia da Luz, and in the trunk of the car, a Renault Scenic that was rented five weeks after Madeleine disappeared, on May 3.

These clues were detected by British dogs, which are trained to smell cadavers and blood residues. The Portuguese police then crossed this information with the results of tests that were performed by two English labs, in Birmingham and Yorkshire, with advanced DNA collection technique. When questioned about the type of result that the tests on the samples provided, the same source refused any further details: “I can only say we are satisfied with the work that was done by the British labs”, he said.

According to a source close to the couple, the police even confronted Kate McCann with the presence of Madeleine’s blood in the car’s trunk, which irritated the British doctor very much, during the inquiry.

The same source said that the police sustains the theory of the child’s accidental death, in the bedroom at Praia da Luz. This will justify the arguida status that was applied to Kate McCann by the police’s initiative, on Friday, after interrogations that lasted for several hours, over two days. According to a police source, the same status will be applied to Gerry McCann, whose inquirition started yesterday afternoon and who was still being heard at the time this edition was closed.

Early in the morning, Gerry stated in his blog that Kate McCann is innocent, and guaranteed that the theory of Kate’s involvement in her daughter’s disappearance is “ridiculous”.

By the end of the afternoon, spokesperson Justine McGuiness explained to Expresso that the police had to make Kate an arguida in order to legally her ask some questions. “Kate is devastated”, McGuiness said. “The police is implicating her in her daughter’s death. But not even the authorities can explain Maddie’s whereabouts. Or if she is dead or alive”. According to the spokesperson, the police has dismissed the abduction theory for good.

If they come to be accused of homicide, without Maddie’s body being found – just like in the case of Leonor Cipriano, the mother of Joana – the fact will be very difficult to explain to the British.

[colomom]

from Sol paper edition on Sept 8:

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=24 post #347

Nerve war

PJ bet on a pressure strategy on the McCanns

Policia Judiciaria (PJ) has no more doubts that Madeleine is dead, and they’ve closed in on the McCanns in order to discover what happened on the night of May 3.

Kate McCann was constituted arguida yesterday, after an interrogation that lasted for approximately 14 hours. Yesterday, at the end of the afternoon, Gerry was still being heard – accompanied by his lawyer Carlos Pinto de Abreu – and the possibility that he will also become an arguido is open.

Judiciaria tries to determine whether the crime was homicide or accidental death. The investigators have been betting on a strategy that includes placing pressure on the English couple. That is why they decided to interrogate Kate exhaustively first, trying to explore any frailties.

The long interrogations focused on the results from analyses that were performed on residues that were collected in the Ocean Club apartment – which were received this week – but also on some of the inconsistencies that were revealed in the depositions of the couple and their friends, right after the child’s disappearance.

In choosing to hear Kate first, PJ also wanted to enhance the pressure on her husband, Gerry McCann. The way he reacted publicly, in some circumstances, leads the investigators into believing that Gerry ‘explodes’ when he is under pressure. In August, Maddie’s father furiously interrupted an interview to a Spanish television channel, after being questioned about the existence of blood traces in his daughter’s bedroom.

It was also with the intention to benefit from an increase in nervousness among the McCann couple and their friends, that police opted not to confirm officially whether they have received the total of results from analyses that were performed on the samples that were sent to the Birmingham lab.

The police strategy also included delaying as much as possible the constitution of Kate McCann as an arguida, because that status confers her special rights. As an arguida, she has the right to remain silent, and is not obliged to cooperate with the investigation. More: under that status, the law even allows Kate to lie, without being punished for that – contrary to what would happen if she was making a deposition as a witness. That issue was pondered by the PJ, when they advanced the possibility that Kate could become arguida on Thursday evening, without going forward with a formal constitution at that moment.

As arguidos, and because they are British citizens, the McCanns “can be subject to a coercion measure that will prevent them from leaving Portugal”, lawyer Vicky Fernandes explained to Sol. The couple’s friends, who spent their holidays with them in Portugal, may be called to Portimao again, or they may be heard in the UK.

[colomom]

in Correio da Manha Sept 8:

http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=257082&idselect=181&idCanal=181&p=0

Copied from: http://helpmadeleine.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=latest&action=display&thread=1182386581&page=24 post #348

Madeleine McCann case: Blood traces in car are decisive
Suspected of killing and hiding Maddie

Kate and Gerry are formally suspected of killing Madeleine and hiding her body. The blood that was found in the couple’s car, which was rented only 25 days after the girl went missing, change the whole scenario. The Policia Judiciaria are now convinced that the parents killed the child, hid the body and then simulated the abduction.

Gerry and Kate deny this and consider the accusations “absurd”. But they fail to contradict the chain of evidence, although circumstantial, that the police has gathered over the last weeks. Everything points at the death of the child inside the apartment, and the fact that the cadaver was successively moved. This could explain the existence of Maddie’s blood in the car, which could have been obtained by contamination, for example from clothes that the child could have been wearing the moment she died.

Yet, without finding the body, it will be difficult for the authorities to advance other coercion measures. They want to avoid a repetition of the Joana case, and the amount of criticism and even suspicions that was raised at that time. The fact that these are two British citizens also lead the Policia Judiciaria into actions of more restraint. The diligences are preceded by great caution, in order not to hurt “international susceptibilities”.

Suspicious behaviour

On the night of May 3, Kate called British television Sky News first, and only after that did she call the police. Furthermore, upon noticing that her 3-year old daughter was missing, Kate closed the apartment door and returned to the restaurant where her friends were. She left the small children alone again, in order to tell the British that her daughter had disappeared. The reports made to police by several witnesses mention no distraught screams or immediate calls for help.

As CM could further discover, there are at least two witnesses that indicate there was neglect from Kate towards her children. One of them is the English woman who lives in a neighboring apartment, who guarantees she heard the child screaming days earlier, calling out for her father. The second witness is another elderly woman, who says she saw Kate behaving in a way that raised suspicions about her performance.

CM knows that the deposition from Russell O’Brien also raised serious doubts with the Judiciaria’s investigators. The English doctor, a friend of the McCanns, guarantees he went to the children’s room around 8 p.m., but then he says he did not enter, and only worried about listening if there was any noise inside the apartment. The version is not considered as believable, and the police thinks that the witness is not telling the whole truth.

(…)

McCanns can leave Portugal

The McCann couple may return to England at any moment. The term of identity and residence only carries judicial constraints, without penal sanctions.

This means Kate and Gerry must inform the court if they want to leave Portugal for more than five days, and they can do it personally, by letter, e-mail or fax. But if they failed to do this and returned to their country, any penal sanction would collide with the lack of international cooperation which is characteristic for the English. Firstly, because they follow the principle of not extraditing their nationals; then, because there is no European country who privileges more their nationality when confronted with alleged suspicions of crimes in other countries.

There is yet another doubt: several jurists that were contacted by CM say it is not certain that the McCanns must ask for permission from the judge in order to leave the country. The law says they must inform the court, but it is not known what would happen if the address that they deliver the court is their residence in England. As Portugal has no jurisdiction in that country, notifications would not be validated, which would raise other juridical constraints.

[CaliKid]

http://dn.sapo.pt/2007/09/08/socieda..._madelein.html

Translated by Ozzy at the Mirror Forums

GERRY ADMITS SEDATION-

JOSÉ MANUEL OLIVEIRA e PAULA MARTINHEIRA\


McCann couple suspected of Madeleines death

O casal McCann foi ontem constituído arguido por suspeita de envolvimento na morte da sua filha Madeleine, na noite de 3 de Maio, no aldeamento The Ocean Club, na Praia da Luz. Embora à hora do fecho desta edição, Gerry ainda estivesse a ser inquirido no Departamento de Investigação Criminal (DIC) de Portimão da Polícia Judiciária (PJ), onde chegou pouco depois das 16 horas, logo após a saída da sua mulher, o DN apurou que também ele foi constituído arguido no processo. A ambos foi aplicada a medida de coacção mínima, isto é, o termo de identidade e residência.

The McCann couple were yesterday named arguido (the word means formal suspect) on the basis of suspicion that they were involved in the death of their daughter Madeleine on the night of 3rd May at the Ocean Club, Praia da Luz. Though at the close of this edition Gerry was still at the Dept. of Criminal Investigation (DIC) of the PJ, where he arrived a little after 4 pm, and soon after his wife had left, the newspaper DN has gathered that he has also been named arguido. To both, minimum legal restraints have been applied – ie. identity and confirmation of residence. (This means they have to report to the police and confirm that they are physically present and resident in the place from time to time – once a day or whatever is set).

Pelo menos sobre Kate recairá a suspeita de "crime de homicídio por negligência e ocultação de cadáver" (este último incorre a uma pena até dois anos de prisão)". Uma situação confirmada ao princípio da noite pela assessora dos McCann, Justine McGuinness, segundo a qual "a polícia portuguesa considerou Kate suspeita da morte acidental da sua filha". Entretanto, fontes ligadas ao processo revelaram que Gerry terá admitido aos investigadores ter administrado um sedativo aos filhos na noite de 3 de Maio. E uma das linhas de investigação seguidas neste momento é precisamente, ao que o DN apurou, a hipótese de que a criança terá sido sedada com uma dose excessiva de um medicamento.

Kate is suspected of ‘homicide by negligence and hiding the body” ( the latter constitutes a sentence of upto two years in prison). A circumstance confirmed in principle by the spokesperson Justine McGuinness who said “ the portuguese police suspect Kate of having accidently killed her child”. However, sources connected to the inquiry have revealed that Gerry has admitted to the investigators he had administed a sedative to the children on the night of May 3rd. And one of the investigation lines followed at this moment is precisely, as the DN has gathered, the hypotheis that the child was sedated with an overdose of medication.

Entretanto, fontes ouvidas pelo DN asseguram que a medida de coacção de Kate McCann poderá ser, contudo, aumentada a qualquer momento, em função de novas diligências. Sabe-se entretanto que, segundo declarações feitas por Philomena McCann, cunhada de Kate, ao canal britânico Sky News, a PJ terá oferecido um acordo de dois anos de prisão à mãe de Maddie, através do seu advogado Carlos Pinto de Abreu, para confessar ter matado a sua filha por acidente e escondido o cadáver. Apesar dos contactos efectuados, DN não conseguiu obter uma reacção a esta grave acusação por parte da PJ.

However, sources have told the DN that the restraint measures on Kate McCann can at anytime be increased, depending on the results of new enquiries/information. According to declarations made by Philomena McCann, Kates sister in law, to Sky News, the PJ had offered a deal of two years in prison to Maddies mother through her lawyer Carlos Pinto de Abreu, if she confessed to killing her daughter and hiding the body. Despite trying to verify this, the newspaper DN has not been able to get any response from the PJ regarding this serious accusation.

Contradições de Kate

Contradictions by Kate

Segundo fontes ligadas ao proces