Madeleine McCann: Bushra Binhisa, Bouchra Benaissa And The Irishman
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “HEARTBREAK.
• Girls in Morocco is NOT Madeleine
• Police insists: We know she’s dead
It’s heartbreak, but for whom? The McCanns, who remain suspects, or Daily Express readers who want our Maddy found?
The Madeleine lookalike seen in Morocco – we’ll she’s blonde-ish – is Bushra Binhisa. She bears a “striking resemblance to Madeleine”. As we say, she’s sort of blonde.
Pages 8 and 9: “It’s terrible this is not Madeleine.”
“I saw that little face. It was her,” says Spanish tourist Isabel Gonzalez. She saw a blonde toddler in Morocco. “I screamed at my husband for him to stop the car…but by the time we had stopped and jumped out, the woman and the girl had disappeared…I was in tears, distraught, and I felt totally powerless. I am a mother so I can imagine what Madeleine’s parents must be going through.”
“Police take a swipe at parents” – a Police Judiceria source says the McCanns are trying to deflect attention away from themselves.
A senior police source says the McCanns are using “diversionary tactics”.
DAILY MIRROR front page: “I am Not Maddy.”
No, the little girl remains Bouchra Benaissa. Or she might be Bushra Binhisa (see Express).
Pages 4 and 5: the Benaissa family have six cows, several goats, a small olive grove and vegetable patch. Their home has three bedrooms and a wood-burning stove. Neither parent is a doctor.
THE SUN front page: “ANGUISH FOR KATE. Morocco photo was local girl Bouchra.” She is aged 3. In the Express she is aged 5.
Page 7: Ahmed poses with his wife and daughter Bouchra. Says he: “I am very sorry the little English girl is still missing and hope she is found safe and sound.”
Two more women say they have seen Madeleine in Morocco.
Fatima Marzouki, of Birmingham, says she saw Madeleine in Agadir. There are rumours she is being held in a caravan there by an Irish traveller called John. Her friend Helen McPherson thinks she saw Madeleine in Marrakech.
DAILY MAIL front page: “The truth about that Maddie photo.”
Pages 10 and 11: “No, she isn’t Madeleine.”
DAILY STAR front page: “MADDIE STILL IN HOLIDAY RESORT. Morocco pic NOT her..cops says she NEVER left Portugal.”
Pages 4 and 5: “LITTLE GIRL THE WORLD PRAYED WOULD BE MADELEINE.” It’s Bushra Binhisa again. Where’s Bouchra? What have they down with Bouchra?
Page 6: “Forget sightings…Maddie was killed in room say police.”
THE TIMES page 3: “Found – but it’s not Madeleine.”
Clarence Mitchell says: “This Spanish couple did the right thing and we urge others to do the same.” So if you see ‘Madeleine McCann’ you too should go to the papers and appear on the radio.
THE GUARDIAN page 15: “Spanish tourist’s claims of Madeline sighting in Morocco proves false.” Carla Torres, the Spanish tourist, says “It either is her, or she’s got a twin sister.” Do all blonde children look the same to Spaniards? The plot thickens.
THE INDEPENDENT page 6: “McCanns despair as picture of girl in Morocco is child of local farmer.”
DAILY TELEGRAPH front page: “Child pictured in Morocco is not Madeleine.” It’s Bouchra Ben Aisa. She looks a lot like Bushra Binhisa and even more like Bouchra Benaissa.
But she is not Madeleine McCann.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Message for:
Mods and Admin
Thanks for answering my post. I read your reply this morning and afterwards I then watched Spudguns video and somehow it made me stop in my tracks. There is someone who has asked the questions that need to be asked.
The truth, is about challenging perception, validating the reported “facts” and asking those awkward questions. When there are no more questions to ask then that is the end. But whilst questions remain those who believe in the truth will keep asking.
Tony Bennett and Spudgun really known the meaning of this.
But in turn what happens Tony Bennet is declared a Tory and Spudgun is derided for the production quality of his presentation. It’s the message, not how its delivered that counts. Spudgun’s message was more powerful than I or anyone else on this site could ever deliver. It may be a satirical web site but not to quote Clarence Mitchell, if it wasn’t so laughable it would be serious.
Why is it those who have asked the most and challenged the best have moved away from the site, simple, they are fed up with the hired hands believing that public perception can be changed by repeating tedious spin instead of fact. The worst crime to commit in any debate is to constantly present speculation and dress it up as fact.
Of course of those who have gone away, will their views have changed just because they don’t appear in print, no they will still think the same. Therein lies the flaw with the keyboard monkeys view, they underestimate how powerful a thought will always be, a thought no matter how it is delivered can speak the truth.
I don’t need to post again, as Spudgun has said it all. I have downloaded his video because 1 day I know the truth will out. And so Anorak thanks for what was a great site.
And for those who are wondering who’s team I’m on.
I’m on team Madeleine. A child whom has been so badly let down, and who’s memory is still being badly let down.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:54 am
They tracked down and eliminated this family out of the enquiry pretty quickly. If ?????Jane Tanner did see a man carrying a child on 3rd May ,and it was not Madeleine being abducted ,why has said man not been tracked down or come forward to say “it was me”, to eliminate the said sighting out of the enquiry.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:57 am
because the only man carrying a child away from there was one of the tapas 9 of course!
and she wasn’t alive at the time.
my opinion, obv.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:59 am
maybe gordon was a swinger!
and clarence!
All this will come out wont look good will it
September 27th, 2007 at 10:01 am
I watched Spudgun’s video - unfortunately it doesn’t include Charlotte Pennington’s reported sighting of Robert Murat outside the reception area of the Ocean Club on the night Madeleine disappeared, when he said he was at his mother’s house, fast asleep, making telephone calls to his business partner, Sergei Malinka.
There are far more unanswered questions to this case than the ones Spudgun gives, which are mostly about the numbers of well-connected lawyers and PR people the McCanns have hired.
Why not, I would say, if they have enought money from the fund.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:07 am
1 - observer. I am right behind you in all you say and am also behind you in leaving this site now. Even if Spudgun or Tony Bennett stop posting I will be reassured to know that I am not alone with my questions. Thank you to all who have contributed with either logical debate or rye humour over the past week, I have enjoyed your company. To those who have simply hurled abuse - well I don’t think you have done much to help Madeleine.
So - like observer, and all those who have been brave enough to be risk being called ‘hatemongers’ just because we are uneasy about some of the aspects of this case, I will end by just saying that I too am ‘on team Madeleine. A child whom has been so badly let down, and who’s memory is still being badly let down.’
September 27th, 2007 at 10:08 am
has anyone got the link for spudguns vid as I can’t find it!!
September 27th, 2007 at 10:09 am
I cant believe a failed sighting of maddie was more important
than 12 people naming the same guy for shooting rhys last night from crimewatch!
A reason given for no maddie reconstruction from the beeb was it was too complicated
NO!!!?!!!!!!!!!!!????????????
September 27th, 2007 at 10:11 am
7
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2296203136219895848&hl=en-GB
think thats it
September 27th, 2007 at 10:12 am
thanks.
I’ll watch it and report back…..
September 27th, 2007 at 10:15 am
observer abuse is par for the course on here! Surely it works both ways? Jeez,, I’ve been cursed up hill and dwon dale and condemned to the fires of hell! Being called a Tory is zilch as an insult.
either we’re all polite in our opposing views or we’re not, we all think our opinion is the most valid.
In fact neither view is more or less valid because nothing is proven…..
September 27th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Daily Express: ‘Police take a swipe at parents’ – a Police Judiceria source says the McCanns are trying to deflect attention away from themselves. Another senior police source says ‘the McCanns are using diversionary tactics’.
COMMENT: As they have done from the moment the McCanns screamed out ‘Madeleine’, ‘Madeleine’ at 10.00pm on Thursday 3 May, after Madeleine had died in their apartment and the body had been removed.
May the case of Madeleine McCann - when the true facts are known - lead to the police *always* sealing off the scene of an alleged ‘abduction’, so that in future, no-one can get away with creating a giant smokescreen to cover up the truth.
One day the truth will out and those who think I am pronouncing guilt too early will be able to see what has really happened. One thing we need to bear in mind here is what great evil may lie within the human heart.
A doctor?
Harold Shipman.
The Muslim doctors who tried to blow up Glasgow airport.
It is perfectly possible for a couple’s child - yes, a couple of doctors’ child - to have died in their apartment whilst on holiday - whether through accident, negligence, manslaugter or murder, and then for that couple to make a rapid decision (with the help of a couple of accomplices) to cry ‘abduction’ - thus throwing the police completely off the scent - then to invite the media to hunt for the alleged ‘abductor’ and blame the police for not doing enough to find their child, and then to set up a private fund mainly to help them defend themselves a pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for media advice, and get Gordon Brown, the White House and the Pope involved, all to cover up what the Portuguese police rightly refer to as their ‘diversionary tactics’.
Let’s hope for the sake of us all that the truth that the McCanns and their Tapas 9 accomplices are so strenuously hiding comes out sooner rather than later
September 27th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I think Spudgun’s video was brilliant and agree with Observer above. Also, Puzzled says this all the time - what is the problem with answering questions if you are innocent? Why is it necessary to control information as GM has done from the beginning? We believed him at first in that it was necessary in order to protect the investigation, but the PJ have been kept in the dark also and have obviously interviewed others with different information.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:22 am
1
observer
this is a discussion site, and therefore people will challenge your motives for posting, whether they be political, personal or whatever.
this comes with the territory when airing your own personal views.
running to moderators complaining about this is futile in my opinion,as discussion and speculation, no matter how wild Iin some peoples opinion) is all valid.
if it upsets you, all i can really say is that’s life, and you have to either learn to live with it or don’t bother reading it.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:25 am
also, a lot of people claiming to be on ‘team madeline’ are in fact in ‘team ego’ and just cannot cope with the fact that other people do not consider their weighty opinions to be anything like as involved, deep and sincere as certain posters think they are.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:25 am
hmmm, it doesn’t look good for them does it?
good vid, nice music. made me sad watching some of it actually.
poor girl.
I’d like to see a vid where a positive spin is put on the whole situation and see if it changes my opinion the other way.
spudgun - play devils advocate and do the other side of the argument!
September 27th, 2007 at 10:27 am
The political aspect of this case and the massive media overkill and manipulation interests (and frightens) me. Some posters on this forum have suggested that Gordon Brown perhaps became involved in the case because he is, like Mr.McCann, a Scot - apparently from the same area. Others have said that Mr. Brown was genuinely taken in by the McCanns. I feel that there is another dimension; that the missing child - tugging as it does at the nation’s heartstrings - is being played by Brown for his own political ends.
He is a bereaved daddy himself (assuming the most likely scenario with regard to Madeleine); he is also a proud daddy, after years of being a dour, sour middle-aged bachelor. He never misses a chance to prove his “daddy” credentials because he feels this chimes with the national child-centred obsession. And because it is acceptable now to display ersatz emotion with regard to someone you’ve never met and don’t know (think Diana) he - and his team - have gone along with the emotive output engendered by the McCann camp hoping to use it for political gain. The party of the child! This is hypocrisy because of all recent governments, Labour has done the least to protect the welfare of the child and the most to sabotage it, in its widest sense.
The establishment’s refusal to accept that perhaps the McCanns have done something truly wicked is part of the plan. It would have been much better for them if Robert Murat had been the guilty party. He ticked the right boxes. If Gordon Brown, for instance, now that the spotlight has shifted from the child to the parents accepts that the McCanns may be guilty then he has to also accept that daddies (and mummies) can, and do, do dreadful things to their own children which reflects badly on the party and on him. It also means that the McCann case would disappear from the papers and the screens until and unless the Portugese police take action. Hence the ‘hope springs eternal’ approach which entails constant ’sightings’ of Madeleine and sanctimonious nonsense from the parents and their family and friends.
Keeping the pot boiling is good for Labour but not if the outcome is off message.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:35 am
12 Tony Bennett Says:
“A doctor?”
It’s interesting in all this debate that two groups in society are polarizing the debate (in part).
One group, those that cast some level of doubt on the McCann’s story sometimes reffer to the perception that doctors are an arrogant self protective bunch, who have more respect and trust than they perhaps deserve, and that there is a suspicion that their profession habitually “covers up” errors to protect reputations when errors occur.
(Personally speaking I’m a bit biased as my dad died of a mis-diagnosys by a GP, and he didn’t even have the time to meet me when I flew back across the Atlantic for the funeral).
The other camp put’s much weight behind the belief that the police is lazy/corrupt/incompetent. Funnily enough this is another profession with a reputation getting more trust than it desrves and for covering up and protecting itself and it’s reputations.
I’m not drawing any conclusions from all this…simply observing the irony of the apparent symetry.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:36 am
16
we see that bollox version everyday called ITV BBC SKY etc……..
September 27th, 2007 at 10:36 am
16-sammy
i agree
i watched it in a neutral light and it is more against-
it would be a better way to do it neutral as people can then think for themselves,
September 27th, 2007 at 10:37 am
12, Tony Bennett
Of course it is possible for a doctor to murder, as doctors have murdered in the past.
However, it is unlikely.
Why do you discount the other likely possibilities?
Why would you prefer it if the parents were found to be involved?
What is wrong with keeping an open mind until the evidence is known, real or planted?
September 27th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Has anyone read up on The jack the ripper case
there are similarities from then
September 27th, 2007 at 10:39 am
he’s murder!!!
September 27th, 2007 at 10:42 am
1 Observer: “But whilst questions remain those who believe in the truth will keep asking. Tony Bennett and Spudgun really known the meaning of this. But in turn what happens Tony Bennett is declared a Tory…”
REPLY: I hesitate to reply, but it was just ’slyfox’ last night who queried whether I was a Tory - simply because I had noted that as well as the media regurgitating much of the Team McCann spin line for the past weeks (including the unbelievable promimence - at the behest of Team McCann - given to a photo that was manifestly not Madeleine and which*they* put into circulation), the media also seemed to be giving Gordon Brown a very easy ride and perhaps pushing us towards an early election, which they appear to strongly beleive Labour will win.
I did that, picking up on Spudgun featuring Gordon’s Brown’s powerful intervention on behalf of the McCanns as early as late May. It was an ‘en passant’ observation of mine on the media, which may well be wrong - there’s nothing more to it than that. The media have a very powerful influence on us and they don’t always tell us the truth, nor give us a balanced viewpoint, on a whole range of subjects.
Unfortuanely the ‘Madeleine McCann campaign’ begun by the McCanns has already become partly politicised; remember when Gerry McCann told the Edinburgh Festival that he was now looking forward to moving on to the political implications and involving himself in the ‘political campaign’? - and then look at his flipchart which also concentrated on the long-term political implications of Madeleine’s ‘abduction’ (he didn’t use those actual words but it was similar).
Simply to place this on the record on this Forum, I am not a Tory, I am a member of no political party, and I was a fully-paid up member of Harlow Constitency Labour party from 1985 to 1997
September 27th, 2007 at 10:42 am
22, similarities? Like what.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:43 am
i heard you was a member of ’screaming lord sutch’s’
September 27th, 2007 at 10:48 am
25
in that there could be a lot of unknown or known powerful people involved.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:49 am
I see the Star are pulling no punches this morning. Maybe they’re p!ssed off at paying the expenses to send someone to Morocco on a wild goose chase….
QUOTE
MADDIE WAS ‘KILLED IN ROOM’
Kate McCann is still a suspect27th September 2007
By Jerry Lawton
POLICE instantly branded the “Moroccan Maddie’’ photo bogus because they are convinced that she is dead.
Portuguese detectives do not believe her parents’ claim she was abducted from their holiday apartment.
They think she was accidentally killed there by her mum Kate who then roped in husband Gerry to help dispose of the body to cover it up.
Last night a source close to the investigation dismissed any distress the couple showed over learning the girl in the picture was not Madeleine as “tears of a crocodile’’.
We could tell quickly it was not Madeleine. The shape of the head was wrong A police source
They admitted they were no longer looking for a living girl and were continuing to search for four-year-old Madeleine’s body.
A police source said: “We have seen the picture but this information is not valued. We could tell quickly it was not Madeleine. The shape of the head was wrong.
“But we did not expect the little girl to be her. The theory of abduction is no longer being pursued. We believe she died in the apartment.
“We continue with the investigation to find the body and bring to justice those who killed her.’’
Police believe Madeleine died after being given an accidental overdose of sedatives to help her sleep so her parents, both 39, could go out for dinner with pals in a tapas bar in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.
They want to hit the McCanns, of Rothley, Leics, with FIVE charges.
Kate could face a MANSLAUGHTER rap for allegedly accidentally killing Madeleine.
She and husband Gerry jointly face being accused of ILLEGALLY DISPOSING OF A BODY in a bid to cover up the crime.
They also face a possible CHILD NEGLECT charge after leaving Madeleine and their twins alone in the holiday apartment.
And Kate could be charged with BREACHING JUDICIAL SECRECY by revealing in a newspaper interview while a suspect in a criminal case that police had seized her Bible as evidence.
It is illegal in Portugal to discuss the evidence in an on-going investigation.
Police also want the couple jailed for OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE by hiring private detectives to hunt down their missing daughter.
They brought in their own investigators to search for Madeleine fearing police had stopped looking.
Portuguese law chiefs claim the move is illegal and itself punishable by a jail sentence. Last night it was revealed that £300,000 has been spent searching for Madeleine.
Directors of the fighting fund to find her said they had received £1,036,104 in donations.
The couple’s spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “Any work to help find Madeleine is being done within the law. No private investigators have been commissioned to work within Portuguese jurisdiction.”
END QUOTE
September 27th, 2007 at 10:49 am
mass media hype
bungling police
political implications
conspiracy theories
i wonder if any royals were in portugal in may?
September 27th, 2007 at 10:50 am
27 in the actual abduction or murder?