Lawyer Rodolfo Ragonesi: "You Mccannot be serious!"

By Rodolfo Ragonesi, lawyer and researcher in history and international affairs

Times of Malta
Tuesday, October 9, 2018, 06:38
by Rodolfo Ragonesi
You Mccannot be serious! - Rodolfo Ragonesi

With apologies to the amiable John Mc­Enroe for borrowing his signature line and turning it around to address an issue far more serious than tennis, let me begin by stating that I will not attempt to second guess a court of law and pass judgement on what happened to Madeleine McCann on or around that fateful night of May 3, 2007.

However, considering that the case is still unresolved, it is pertinent to highlight a number of inconsistencies that indicate that the abduction theory has remained just that, a theory, and one that many professionals have claimed does not hold much water.

The first thing of supreme importance that does not add up is the difficulty in finding the point of entry of any alleged abductors into apartment 5A, coupled with the changes in a number of statements made by the McCanns. They were quick to inform family and friends in the UK over the phone that the window had been “jemmied”, or forced open, and that the doors had been locked. Jemmy is another word for crowbar. But the crime scene officers found no indication whatsoever of any forced entry.

So what led the McCanns to allege that the windows had been “jemmied”?

A new version then surfaced that the sliding back door had been left open. But this contradicted earlier statements. However, if the unlocked door theory is sustained, surely the McCanns would never have jumped to the conclusion that the window had been jemmied.

And why would they have immediately reached the conclusion that Maddie had been abducted, shouting this out to their friends? If, as established, Maddie had awoken crying on a previous night and found her parents gone, why would they have not suspected that, having found the door they then alleged was open, she may have wandered out looking for them?

This is what initially threw the Polizia Judiciaria. Conan Doyle, as Sherlock Holmes, states that an investigator needs to establish the impossible, and once this is eliminated from the equation, whatever is left is the truth. Was it ever possible for a stranger to gain entry into the apartment?

The McCanns and their doctor friends, the so-called Tapas 7, stated that they had been taking turns in checking on their kids sleeping in the neighbouring apartments at the Ocean Club, 60 metres away. At least one of the couples had a baby monitor in their apartment. So why is it that the McCanns did not?

Why did their friends who had baby monitors agree to check on all the kids instead of advise the McCanns to acquire a baby monitor of their own, which provides constant surveillance?

Was that fateful night the first night they were checking up on the kids? If so, why? If not, how does one explain the fact that Mrs Fearne, living in the apartment above the McCanns’, reported to the police that she had heard constant crying coming from their apartment on the previous Tuesday that lasted around an hour and 15 minutes? This was confirmed by the McCanns themselves, who admitted that Maddie had confronted them on why they had not come when she or the twins were crying.

The McCanns’ statements have raised far more questions than provided answers to the circumstances surrounding the tragic disappearance of their daughter

Considering the crying incident earlier in the week and the alleged absence of a baby monitor, why did the group of medics living in and paying for an exclusive resort, decline to use the in-house babysitting services once they had decided to leave all the children unattended in the evenings? They could even have shared one.

The McCanns vehemently denied ever using sedatives on the children during the trip. But Kate McCann’s father stated that she used to administer sedatives and Gerry McCann had told the police that Maddie often had difficulty sleeping. How is it that with all the commotion, hysteria, shouting and noise on the discovery of the missing child, as confirmed by staff, the twins kept sleeping through it all?

Why were the twins not tested for sedatives at the time? Why did the McCanns carry out a test only four months later in an attempt to show that the twins had not been sedated?

The media has referred to Kate McCann as a general practitioner or GP. But she is actually a qualified anaesthetist. Had Maddie theoretically died of an overdose in the administration of a sedative, apart from being found guilty of wrongful death through negligence, and possibly losing custody of her other children, Kate could well have been struck off the medical register. Following Maddie’s disappearance she has practised neither form of medicine.

The forensics are the stickiest part of the whole tragic saga. Following Conan Doyle’s principle, the police started to explore other leads and brought in two sniffer dogs from the UK trained to respectively pick up the scent of human blood and human cadavers.

The ‘cadaver’ dog picked up scent in the apartment, including in a cupboard in the parents’ bedroom, on Kate’s shorts, and in the car and booth of the Renault first hired by them over three weeks after Maddie’s disappearance. The ‘blood’ dog picked up scent from behind the sofa and in the booth of the said car. Tiny blood samples were taken from the booth to a forensic lab in the UK that found a possible match to Maddie’s DNA.

When asked for his comments in an interview with regard to the reactions of the sniffer dogs and the possible DNA match, Gerry McCann is seen getting very agitated, rising from his chair and walking around the room, refusing to address the question, and threatening to leave the interview.

Kate remains cool, asking the interviewer to give him a moment, saying that her husband should go out to get some air. In a follow-up interview Gerry calmly replies sardonically and wryly to the same question with the words “ask the dogs”.

A most disturbing detail came out of two depositions made to the Leicester Police on May 16, 2007, by Katherine and Arul Gaspar, two doctors who know the McCanns well and holidayed with them in Majorca in 2005. They reported hearing comments back then, from a member of the eventual Tapas 7 on the Majorca trip, to Gerry McCann about Madeleine, using lewd gestures which the Gaspars found very disturbing, making them apprehensive of his presence around their own children.

The Gaspar depositions were only passed on to the Portuguese Polizia Judiciaria and entered into the procès verbal in January, 2008.

Goncalo Amaral, a senior police detective heading the investigation, was replaced. He eventually left the force and published a book about the investigation called The Truth of the Lie. Amaral has made the case that Maddie died in the apartment, and that this was covered up. He was sued by the McCanns for libel but they lost the case in the supreme court in Portugal.

When the McCanns were pronounced arguidos, or official suspects, Kate exercised her right to remain silent and refused to answer 24 questions put to her during interrogation. The investigation on the McCanns was closed in July 2008, and they are no longer listed as suspects. To this day, however, those questions have never been answered by Kate, who nevertheless went on to write a book about the whole ordeal.

The McCanns and all their doctor friends, members of the Tapas 7, have always refused to take lie detector tests.

The McCanns’ statements have raised far more questions than provided answers to the circumstances surrounding the tragic disappearance of their daughter.

While there is no doubt that the McCanns have been through hell, it is unlikely that justice for a missing child could ever be served without exploring all leads to the very end, no matter where they may take you.

Is this being done? Has it ever been done?

Rodolfo Ragonesi is a lawyer and researcher in history and international affairs.

https://www.timesofmalta.com/mobile/articles/view/20181009/opinion/you-mccannot-be-serious-rodolfo-ragonesi.691117#

In response, this is what I have sourced. Are my sources different to yours?

Kate McCanns First statement on 4th of May...the day after.

"At around 10pm, the interviewee went to check on the children. She went into the apartment by the side door, which was closed but not locked, as she said before. She noticed that the door to her children's bedroom was completely open, the window was also open, the shutters raised and the curtains open, while she was certain of having closed them all as she always did."

Kates second statement made on the 6th of september, 4 months later stops just before getting to her discovering maddie gone.

Her third statement made on the 7th of September, 4 months later, she refused to answer any questions as a suspect.

So where has her statement changed?


Gerry's statement on the 4th May, the day after:

"At about 22.00 it was his wife Kate who went to check on the children. She entered the apartment by the door using the key and saw immediately that the door to the children's bedroom was completely open, the window was also open, the blinds were raised and the curtains were drawn open."

Bear in mind that he was not with Kate, so has given what he understood to have happened.


Gerry's second statement given on the 10th of May, a week after the disappearance:

"When he arrived at the bedroom he first noticed that the door was completely open, the window was also open on one side, the external blinds almost fully raised, the curtains drawn back, MADELEINE'S bed was empty but the twins continued sleeping in their cribs. He clarifies that according to what KATE told him, that was the scene that she found when she entered the apartment."

Gerry's third statement given on the 7th of September 4 months after

"When questioned, he states that from the first moment, after the first fruitless searches, he thought that Madeleine had been abducted and it was this information that he gave to everyone to whom he spoke. He reached such a conclusion because he did not think it possible that she had gone out on her own or opened the blinds and window in the room."

So can someone point out to me where the statements changed?

Or are you confusing what was reported in the press or said by others, with statements?

Regarding the window being jemmied open, this seems to have been an assumption by Gerry McCann, because if you look at the statements, it's pointed out that Gerry had broken the blind a day or two before.
In the above exert from Gerry's third statement, he say's that he does not think it possible that she had opened the blinds and window on her own.

In TV interviews, he maintains that he thought the window might have been jemmied open because he believed it was impossible to have opened the window from the outside.


They have both always maintained that the window was open, and that answers your next question as to why they immediately knew she had been abducted.

If this is what 'they' shouted out to their firends or not, I don't know. There doesn't seem to be much point checking.

"Was it ever possible for a stranger to gain entry into the apartment?" I think this has been answered.

Who knows why one couple thought of a baby monitor and the others didn't?

Pamela Fenn, made statement on the 2oth August.
I don't know, is it reliable or not?

As for the Mccanns mentioning the crying incident, they mentioned that in their early statements, long before Pamela Fenn.
What they had said was that Maddie had only mentioned it and not dwelt on it. So they would not have known how long it lasted.

Regarding the in house baby sitting service, from what I've seen in TV interviews, those services were very limited.

In (I believe) David Paynes statement, he mentions that they had used Mark Warner resorts before and they usually had a baby listening service.
Each of the families had their own requirements for the holiday, and the only one that was not met at this particular resort was such a service, so it was a group decision to carry out their own listening service with the added advantage of actually entering the apartments, which listening services didn't.

Sedatives: I don't think Gerry's dad said anything about using sedatives on the children, did he? I thought he said that they gave them calpol? Calpol is not a sedative, and night calpol was not yet on the market at that time.

You ask why the McCanns only carried out a test 4 months later, but I ask why did they carry out such a test at all?
Surely it was for the police to carry out such tests?
I think the question as to why the twins didn't wake up was just as curious to the Mc's as anyone else, but I wouldn't have thought it was their job to test if THEY had drugged their children.
The test that was done was by a hair sample, and hair grows at around 1cm per month, so an adequate sample was taken to cover the holiday period.


Kate had been an anaethetist, but then went on to become a GP.

About the dogs....I'm only showing you what I have found, so go easy on me!

First, here is a video of the dog in the car park:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTF4JTLeOWA

Before you watch it, please read these comments:

First, from the Grime report concerning the mehtodology:

"The interpretation of any alert is given when the dogs recognize a specific odour as a result of a response to the behaviour for which they were trained. This response must then be submitted to a forensic examination in order to draw conclusions."


So he's saying here that is not him who draws conclusions, but the forensics lab.

So here is an exert from the forensics report: Central Division of Information Analysis

"From the screening of the videos, referred previously, done when the dogs were working, some doubts arise. We don't want and we can't take the place of the trainer, we only wish to alert, with this paragraph, to some facts, that according to us, need further clarification.
If the dog is trained to react when he detects what he is looking for, why, in most of the cases, we see the dog passing more than once by that place in an uninterested way, until he finally signals the place where he had already passed several times'
On one of the films, it's possible to see that 'Eddie' sniffs Madeleine's cuddle cat, more than once, bites it, throws it into the air and only after the toy is hidden does he 'mark' it (page 2099). Whys didn't he signal it when he sniffs it on the first time'
Apart from all that was said about the dogs, we must also take into attention the results of the forensic analysis that was performed by the experts on the Scientific Police Laboratory on the day immediately after the facts, and already mentioned where no vestige of blood was found."


Now please look at the video, and note that the dog has to be continually prompted to focus on the car.

Here is the the report in the PJ Files:

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk//PJ/ANALYSIS-11-VOLUMES.htm

Please scroll down to the heading: 2.1. The hypothesis of death is based on the following

As for blood: Nowhere in the forensics report is it mentioned that blood was found. DNA was identified but it wasn't Madeleine's. It turned out to be from three of the forensics team:

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/JOHN_LOWE.htm#p10p2617-2623


On the samples three DNA profiles were identified:

- A low level incomplete DNA profile which matched the corresponding components in the DNA profile of Gerald McCann was obtained from cellular material on the key card(286C/2007-CRL(12)).
- 286A/2007-CRL 5A & B Swabs collected from the wall of the apartment ... In my opinion, Fernando Viegas could have contributed DNA to this result.
- 286/2007-CRL (17) Cement-glue [grouting] between the floor tiles identified as number 2...In my opinion, the major part of the profile matched that of Lino Henriques.
 
All three of the above mentioned people are (were at the time) still very much alive. Fernando Viegas and Lino Henriques are Portuguese Forensic experts.
 



About Gerry getting agitated, he is heard to complain that he was not allowed to comment, and his objection can be seen to be about being put on the spot about something he is not allowed to talk about.

In the Gaspar statements, the husband could not be sure who Gerry and Payne were talking about, and the wife 'thinks' they were talking about Maddie on one occasion and Davids daughter on the other.

The 48 questions, asked 4 months later when kate was made a suspect: She answered all questions asked of her when the interview started the previous day. She was a witness.
As a witness, she had no right to silence.
The following day, she was questioned as a suspect and was advised not to reply, and quite rightly too.
If the PJ really wanted answers, why did they not continue questioning her as a suspect?

Lie detectors, could you tel me who asked who to take a lie detector test?
From what I remember, it was the McC's who first offeed to take one, but declined when they discovered it could not be used in court.
I blieve there were two TV shows that asked them to do lie detector tests, and those are what they turned down. I would have too.


Can someone please comment and tell me if and how I am mistaken here? Thanks.

You may need to change your user name to Befuddled.   NickE has posted the text from an opinion piece, to be found on the link provided. Your questions would better be directed to the author, Rodolfo Ragonesi, at the Times of Malta, although comments to the article are now closed.

I won't go through your post point by point, but you do seem befuddled.

Gerry had broken the blind a day or two before.

Gerry (supposedly) broke a different blind shortly after their arrival.

Can someone point out to me where the statements changed?

Gerry's statement changed when he said they used the unlocked patio door after first saying he (and later, Kate) entered the front door using a key.

Can someone please comment and tell me if and how I am mistaken here?

Read The Truth of the Lie by Goncarlo Amaral, links found in the sidebar.