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Anorak News | Madeleine McCann: Let’s get the Arabs

Madeleine McCann: Let’s get the Arabs

by | 20th, December 2011

OUR Maddie: Anorak’s at –a-glance look at Madeleine McCann in the news: after the gypsies are defamed it’s time to get the Arabs again:

Sunday Express: “MADELEINE: SECRET FILES REVEAL FOUR ‘SIGHTINGS’ IN MOROCCO”

Only four?

James Murray writes:

Today the Sunday Express can reveal that among the Spanish private detective agency’s secret files are key “sightings” of Madeleine in Morocco.

Why would the files be secret? If every stone is being turned over to look for the child, why would any sighting remain a secret? Is it so that the kidnappers aren’t panicked, as Gerry McCann said they might have been when the Daily Mail spotted Our Maddie in India?

It’s Metodo 3, of course, the private detective agency that never found the innocent child, nor provided any firm evidence of what happened to her. The firm’s Francisco Marco Fernandez says of handing over 30 boxes of stuff to the Met:

“I think this could be a significant moment in the effort to discover what happened to the child. I am very glad all our leads will now be looked at by the Yard because they are important.

How so?

“There were about eight interesting leads which they will examine but I cannot say any more because I have agreed total secrecy with Scotland Yard.”

How’s that for total secrecy?

He reluctantly spoke of four “interesting” sightings in Morocco after Madeleine, then aged four, disappeared from her ­holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, ­Portugal, on May 3, 2007.

Let’s hope any kidnappers are as easily broken. What of the sightings of our Maddie, also seen in:

Canada,ItalySwedenPortugalSpainMoroccoMajorca,BelgiumBosniaFranceAustraliaBrazil,Wales, MaltaItalyGermanyAustrialia, France, DubaiDorsetUSA and New Zealand (by boat)?

Go on:

It is known there were two possible sightings in Marrakech: one was at a petrol­station when a child strongly resembling her was seen going into a shop three months after she was snatched.

And the spotter took a photo or followed girl? No.

A witness told Metodo 3 she had the same unusual eye ­feature as Madeleine.

Close enough to see her eye but not close enough to shout “Madeleine!”?

There was another sighting of a child resembling Madeleine at an adjacent hotel on the same day at around the same time.

A hotel? So. The police were called and the guest list checked?

In a third sighting, a Moroccan-looking woman was seen carrying a blonde-haired, white-skinned girl.

Moroccan-looking? Not Algerian looking. Not British looking. Not Spanish looking. Not German looking.  Moroccan looking.

The child was eventually identified as the five-year-old daughter of an olive farmer.

The girl was not Moroccan looking but she was Moroccan?

Lest you think this was all useless, the taciturn Mr Fernandez assures us:

“It is very intriguing information. We took inquiries as far as we could and then handed it over to the Portuguese police. We did it all in the proper way, wrote a report then gave it to Spanish police and they would pass it on to the Portuguese police for us. We never really heard back from the Portuguese so I can’t say what they did.”

Well, chances are the Met have asked them. So thank Mr Metodo 3 (look ‘em up in the phonebook). And goodnight.

Says James Murray:

Asked if he ever spoke to the former Portuguese detective in charge of the hunt, Goncalo Amaral, he frowned and shook his head. “Don’t talk to me about that man,” he said. “I can’t believe the things he said in his book. He got it so wrong.”

Good that Mr Fernandez has stuck to the facts.

When Mr Fernandez was asked if Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, had requested him to hand over his files to the Yard, said: “Of course, I would need their permission but I am not going to say any more. All our ­dealings with the McCanns are confidential and private.”

Why would he need the McCanns’ permission to hand over details to police about an ongoing investigation into a missing child? What would be the use of an international call to spot a child if a company with unique access keeps “secret” stuff secret?

The Yard’s activities have given new hope to doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, both 43, of Rothley, Leicestershire. Yesterday their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “They are very pleased that police are continuing to work and review the case and that progress is being made. They welcome this and hope the team will bring a new ­perspective to the case. For operational reasons we cannot comment on details of the review but it is a step in the right direction.”

For sure. The Met are no mugs.

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