Madeleine McCann: Robert Murat And More Questions
MADELEINE McCann is missing. Still missing.
But today there is news. The daily front-page shots of Madeleine’s traumatised parents are moved further within the papers to make space for the head of Robert Murat.
“MADELEINE BRITISH MAN IS QUIZZED!” says the Mirror’s front-page headline.
Robert Murat
After the speculation the paper delivers a welter of facts. Robert Murat lives with his mum. Robert Murat is in his 30s. Robert Murat lives with his mother in a villa 150 yards from the apartment where Madeleine McCann was snatched.
The Sun (“MADDIE: BRIT QUIZZED”) says Murat lives 100 yards from that McCann apartment. Like the Mirror, the Sun produces a front-page picture of “one-eyed Murat”. The Mail hears that Murat lost his eye in a BMX accident when he was a boy. The Mail says Murat lives 80 yards from Madeleine’s holiday apartment.
Murat is “stocky”. He offered to help the police hunt as a “translator”. He lives in Casa Liliana, with his mum Jenny.
The Suspect
The Sun’s Julie Moult considers the evidence. And delivers a piece entitled “stories of a fantasist”. “He always seemed so eager to get involved in the police investigation,” says the Sun’s woman–on-the-scene. “Robert claimed he had a daughter just like Madeleine and said he felt compelled to do anything he could. But to me he seemed like classic fantasist.”
The Sun introduces Martin Brunt, the crime news correspondent from its sister organ, TV’s Sky news.
He says Murat told him he’d been taken inside the McCanns’ apartment by police.
Sky news correspondent Ian Woods says he asked Murat to help him speak with locals.
“I met him and had a conversation with him. I tried to find out as much as I could about him,” says Woods, who checked out Murat’s details. “They did check out, and I left it at that for the time.”
The Mail’s Neil Sears also spots Murat. In “My encounters with a man ‘who just wanted to help’”, Sears tells Mail readers, “There was something more to the friendly expat who called himself ‘Rob’ than met the eye.”
Murat made Sears “feel slightly uncomfortable”.
But it was the Sunday Mirror’s Lori Cambell who alerted police to Murat’s behaviour, she saw as “creepy”.
Writing Wrongs
So much for investigative journalism. Questions were asked but nothing more was done. Murat is with police because he made a show of himself, because he acted as if working in an official capacity. Even though the Times says Murat was acting as “an official translator”.
So now the man in the chinos, with the glass eye, who lives with him mum and whose estranged wife, from Hockering, near Norwich, tells a neighbour “How could someone do something so terrible to little girl like that?’ is all over the papers.
Is Murat guilty? The papers produce nothing to indicate that he is. But if Murat is involved, look out for the stories of how British journalism cracked the case.
And look out for Madeleine McCann. Still missing…
Posted: 15th, May 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,194) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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May 18th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
No Greg, im not. i havnt really said many things about Murat, or anyone else accused of the kidnap, only bout maddy herself or the parents. & i havnt published pictures, or incriminating headlines or anything else, i am merley discussing the situation on here with anyone else who wants to, no diferet to discussing it with friends face to face…
But it is awful that, no matter how dodgy Murat seems to be, he hasnt actually been found guilty yet, but his life is ruined, id hate that to happen to me
May 18th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Apologies, this is the link I meant:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/camilla_cavendish/article1801166.ece
May 18th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Camilla Cavendish of The Times has written an excellent op-ed regarding the horrific insinuation and innuendo surrounding this case. Read it, and then ask yourself this: Am I part of this thoughtless witch-hunt?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IUK/is_2002_Wntr/ai_82802442/pg_2
May 18th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
i didnt say they were on th up, i said IF things like this continue…i was referring to the whole situation-more popel getting away with things etc…, thanks x
May 18th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
HAYLEY ADAMS TROWBRIDGE Says:
May 18th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
YAWN……. r people still going on about this bloomin Madeline Mcann?? BORING Glad the news are not reporting on this as much
u better pray real hard hunny that this sort of thing NEVER happens to you. and if it does I really hope the world pays u more compassion than you are showing the Mccanns
May 18th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
this case is still classified as a missing persons case.
there is still the possibility that the child wandered off herself, as her parents were happy guzzling away on their wine.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
These things have been happening at the same statistical rate for 30 years. The difference now is that we have many more news organisations each looking for their own angle, so we end up with blanket coverage of one story. To say that children are at more risk of being abducted than they used to be is simply not true, we are just more likely to hear about it.
I hope they find the poor wee tot soon, and all the other ones who have not had all of the news coverage.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Yeah its bad enough that we all want closure, i cant imagine how it must feel for the friends & family. The world is a very sick place, makes me wonder sometimes if my little girl will bother to have children if things like this continue
May 18th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
That would be great, baffled by morons. My “bugging feeling” then would either be confirmed or otherwise. I suppose a lot of people are having a lot of thoughts regarding this abduction. The person that took this child (not forgetting all those other children who have went missing over the years) is a monster of the lowest depths of depravity and I hope that he or she is caught very very soon.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Oh…well when you figure out why its bugging you, id be interested to hear why
hopefully someone on here will find out & let you know where shes from. x
May 18th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I’m not sure Morons, just something that’s bugging me.
I do hope that wee soul returns back to her family and home soon.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Curious-i just looked on the nt but cant find out, why do you ask ?
May 18th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
This probably seems a strange question, but I am curious about Michaela Walczuch. I wonder what area or city of Germany she comes from?
May 18th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
LMFAO! i feel sory for people like you ‘Emily’ theres nothin extreme about compasson & respect, perhaps if i didnt have a child maddys age then that would be weird, but i do, & this is how its made me feel,-not saying everyone should feel like me, but this is how i feel, but as i CLEARLY stated, its becaus of how late iv watched the news-right b4 bed time, so it made me feel disrespectful incase it is peodaphiles who took her because then its sexual… so shut your retarded mouth up or atleast say something half decent, gimp!
May 18th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I know it does effect people different but that woman is a bit extreme
May 18th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I cant belive some of the notes that been added some sad person wrote this I cant belive people are so shallow quote… this is too much isnt it, i know this might sound like ‘too much info’ but me & my partner havnt had sex since she went missing … i cant go from watching the news late at night, to suddenly saying ‘ok lets get it on’ so to speak, i feel like its disrespectful!?
its effecting everyone so much
No girl sounds like its just effecting you!
May 18th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I know getting a tad bit boring I have a daughter Maddies age and me as a mother is getting fed up with the whole story. Her parents shold have stayed with the children
May 18th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
YAWN……. r people still going on about this bloomin Madeline Mcann?? BORING Glad the news are not reporting on this as much
May 18th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
when maddy 1st went mising i ws trying to find success stories to cheer me up, i was so shocked to see how many kids went missing each year, & when i tried to see thesuccess stories, the page is blank? O_o
http://missingkids.co.uk/missingkids/servlet/PublicHomeServlet
May 18th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Funnily enough I posted that guardian article on another board earlier. He’s right though I would add the proviso that the more intelligent media’s distaste for mawkishness sometimes goes too far the other way. Whenever someone tries to do something genuine to help in tragic circumstances they get accused of gobbling up publicity for their own vanity and I don’t think it is fair. Someone in the public eye can gain necessary publicity. Beckham’s appeal got the coverage that simply wasn’t happening in Spain previously and was very necessary. Princess Diana brought in the bucks for those who needed them. A Brighton woman, Sally something, media-dubbed the Angel of Mostar was called all sorts of names for not shying away from the media but pulling them into a quest to get aid to people in the beseiged city. A friend drove on the convoy and told me the publicity aspect turned his stomach but that at the end of the day they delivered the stuff and it helped. They couldn’t have done it financially or security wise if they hadn’t had massive press coverage however tasteless some of it is. I believe vast publicity and interesting media that is not over-highbrow for the general public COULD BE ACHIEVED without the tackiness, spitefulness, mawkishness and hysteria that typify what we get now. I conclude that the tabloids choose to perpetrate the negativity which they infect our society with. No wonder “kids have no respect these days”. What is to respect, and more fundamentally trust, in the world they see in the papers who claim to be our moral guardians? In short (all readers here will be relieved to hear) I BLAME THE BLAMERS, they are corrupting so so much that is good.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Was shocked to read section about 450 British kids going missing within the last 2 weeks. A I have said before, as a society we should wonder why these cases do not recievethe same attention as has been afforded the McCann family is this doleful situation.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
very interesting, thanx ross. x
May 18th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Interesting article -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2082507,00.html
May 18th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Agree with you Ross. I can’t help but feel that the same anxiety and stress over the little girl that we all feel that drives to find a place like this to express ourselves is the same as the feelings of Murat hanging round the scene trying to find a way to help or to hear some news. And yet that is apparently weird. Personally, apart from the fact that as a mother and a human the thought of this little girl possibly alive somewhere is costing me sleep. On a more practical level, I’m an ex-pat in Greece and know (to a much lesser extent thanks be to all that’s holy) what it is to be met by a policeman who shrugs as if you are a silly tourist making a fuss when you go to them with a problem. Not being related to anyone local and powerful can be a very bad thing. Embassy and consular staff are floating in their own cloud. I have personally saved the Foreign Office phone numbers because that would be my first call if I was trying to make things happen here, not the embassy. And the next calls, call me hypocrite if you will for everything I have posted here, would be to the Sun, Sky, The Mirror etc etc despite realising that this would unleash so much that I didn’t want or need as well as what I did want and need. I still celebrate the fact that we have a free press to some extent, though they are clearly agenda driven. The agenda is a mix of business goals and political allegiance but we are still better off than a lot of places. One of these days though it is the excesses of the stupid media that will probably cost us that freedom.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Do people actually think that this website wil achieve anything in terms of solving this case?! No - this is a talking shop and nothing else. People can come on here and accuse Murat of this crime - if this is a crime, the child may have walked out of the appartment herself and somthing unimaginable may have happened to her - yet he is INNOCENT until proven guilty by Court - not by red top media!
May 18th, 2007 at 11:36 am
We all have our opinions on this most upsetting, horrible and disturbing story. I have read many of the comments above of people playing “Detective” and coming to their own conclusions. It is news and it fuels people’s passions and everyone is entitled to their opinions. Until the investigation is over no one will truly know what has happened to Madeleine. It may never be over and remain a mystery - who knows. However, that does not take away from the fact that you do not leave your child alone when going out for a meal. Even if you are in the safest place on earth. Whatever has happened is horrible beyond belief, kidnap, peadophilia etc. What kind of sick world do we live in. The human race needs to take a look at itself and practise some self pride and worth. When will we learn……………..?
May 18th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Monica at the top of this box where you write it says OPINION? WHAT DO YOU THINK!
That’s what they are - our opinions - we are not saying Murat is guilty - we are just considering the possibilites - so leave us along if you dont want to be part of it!
May 18th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Sinead, as for Murat’s trip abroad. From what I gather he frequently travels to the Uk to see his daughter at weekends and one would imagine that those were planned trips and it shouldn’t be too difficult to establish (date of purchase of tickets, ex-wife’s statement, neighbours in Norfolk) Evn if he went spontaneously there’s no reason why he shouldn’t have. I should imagine he would have been arrested if they hadn’t accounted for all this for the particular trip. If he had caught the train from London to Birmingham to visit his kid on a weekend after the disappearance no-one would find it odd. There’s a fair amount of lack of understanding of ex-pat lifestyles involved in the speculation. Lots of people where I live nip backwards and forwards regularly given the price of airfares nowadays. If you book a few weeks in advance it’s probably cheaper than a british trainfare and Murat is clearly not short of a bob or two. Also it is much cheaper to hire cars on the continent than in Britain I often pick one up for a day or two and I’m by no means flush. If I’ve got a lot to do in a hurry it works out cheaper and faster than having taxis. There is nothing at all in the “evidence” against Murat that we know of and the speculation by the media, if he did turn out to be guilty but no confession or discovery of Madeleine was made would make a trial more or less unworkable I think. Some claims in the papers that “police sources” have said things about encrypted emails with links to dodgy sites etc don’t ring at all true considering the much vaunted law that prevents Sousa from telling what is going on. In other words this is all unfair moonshine even if it is being done to keep the story alive for good reason.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I know what you mean Kirsty - I wouldnt be able to cope knowing the only suspect was minutes away….
May 18th, 2007 at 11:26 am
As well as the loss of their child, the McCann’s have a great burden of guilt to bear. Leave them alone.
Robert Murat has not been charged yet. Leave him alone.
Get on with your lives. Those who have religious faith, pray for the safe return of the child.
All the rest, stop stirring it.