GARY HAGLAND on the McCann Team's preparations to look for Maddie in Morocco, & how the King of Morocco gave permission for Metodo 3 to enter Kingdom

Tony Bennett originally wrote this series of articles about Gary Hagland on 2 July 2013. They were revised and updated by MMRG on 16 May 2019.

It is necessary, first, to give a short account of how it came about that Tony Bennett was in touch with Gary Hagland, who was appointed very early on (September 2007 or maybe before then) by the McCann Team as the 'right-hand-man' to Brian Kennedy, the well-known Cheshire businessman, who the McCanns appointed to run their private investigation to search for Madeleine.

Tony had by early 2009 become well-known on the internet for his public questioning of the claim that Madeleine McCann had been abducted. In Januaery 2008, he had helped to set up the Madeleine Foundation, which published a controversial list of 30 reasons which suggested that Madeleine had been abducted. On 7 December 2008, he published his book:  "What really happened to Madeleine McCann: 60 Reasons which suggest she was not abducted". It began selling well. The Madeleine Foundation arranged for the book to be sent to all 646 MPs, many members of the House of Lords, and many editors, journalists, commentators and opinion-formers.

On 1 August 2009, the Madeleine Foundation organised its first conference. This, and subsequent conferences, attracted attendees from Germany, France and Ireland. On Sunday 16 August 2009, there was nationwide coverage of the distribution of a Madeleine Foundation leaflet which had been delivered in different parts of the country, but also in the village of Rothley, home of the McCanns.

Gary Hagland stepped into this story on Saturday 28 April 2009 at about 5pm.

As Tony Bennett was listening to the football results coming in on BBC Radio 5 Live, he took a 'phone call. The caller asked: "Are you Tony Bennett?" "Are you the man involved with the Madeleine Foundation?" After answering these two questions and switching off the radio, the man - who during this whole conversation did not give his name - said: "I am carrying a great burden". Tony allowed him to tell his story. Weeks later he revealed that he was Gary Hagland.   

He told Tony that he had been asked by Brian Kennedy to a work on the McCanns' private investigation into what happened to Madeleine. He said he had been asked to work from a house in Knutsford, Cheshire, which Brian Kenedy had bought specially as his headquarters for his investigations. During this time, Gary Hagland told Tony Bennett, elliptically, that he "was not happy at the direction Brian Kennedy's investigation was heading" and explained that Kennedy had sacked him after six months after he (Hagland) challenged Kennedy. He began to pour out to Tony many fascinating details about how Brian Kennedy and hjis son Patrick had gone about his 'investigation'.

In August 2009, when the BBC interviewed the then Chairman of the Madeleine Foundation, Gary Hagland wrote to the BBC complaining at the aggressive way she was challenged, copying his emails to Tony.

Subsequently, Tony Bennett and Gary Hagland agreed to meet in Hagland's home town of Nottingham, but in the end Hagland got cold feet and no meeting ever took place. There were subsequent 'phone conversations when Gary Hagland discussed with Tony a book that he was writing about the case. He even sent Tony a copy of Chapter 10 of his book, which is now reproduced elsewhere on CMOMM.

Research established that Hagland had connections with MI6, had once worked for the Hong Kong military police, and had qualified many years earlier as an expert in Money-Laundering Regulations. If you use the search bar and put in 'Hagland', you will find several more articles about Gary Hagland on the forum.

Hagland also has a fascination for aliens and flying saucers and wrote a book on the subject under the pen name 'Mason Horsburgh'.           
     
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Here is a short extract from Gary Hagland’s manuscript. It deals with the preparations of the McCann Team for their search for Madeleine in Morocco. The events described by Hagland occurred (according to Hagland) in late September 2007. I add a note below of events occurring around this time:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

QUOTE Gary Hagland

It was with the support of Helping to Find Madeleine in mind that I first began to research and analyse Morocco as a realistic target destination for Madeleine. This was against a backdrop not just of limited investigative resource but fading resource.

The September 2007 sighting of a white, fair-haired small girl seen being carried papoose-style on the back of a Moroccan peasant woman near the town of Zinat, whose snatched photograph by Clara Torres, a tourist form Albacete, Spain, was splashed across British newspapers with the strap-line: ‘Could this be the face of Madeleine McCann?’, focused attention that fair-skinned, blonde offspring are not unusual in this region, and that Madeleine could more easily be assimilated and absorbed, than not. It also triggered Brian Kennedy flying to the area in the belief the sighting was Madeleine.

It wasn’t Madeleine; the child, Bouchra Ben Aisa, was a relative of the woman who was carrying her. The sense that Madeleine was there remained with me, however. This was reinforced by a report from another Spanish woman who was convinced that she saw Madeleine in the town of Zaio in northern Morocco at the end of May. The woman said that she saw a girl she believed was Madeleine being led by a Moroccan woman in Muslim dress. Allegedly, a gust of wind blew the child’s hat off, exposing her blonde hair underneath. Then there were two sightings of a blonde girl matching Madeleine’s description in Marrakesh on May 9th.

The Kingdom of Morocco, with Rabat being its capital, is located in North Africa. With the large main cities of Fes, Sale, Agadir, Marrakesh, Tangier, Meknes, Oujda and Tetouan, it has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Spain to the north, Algeria to the east, and Mauritania to the south.

The King of Morocco holds not inconsiderable powers, although executive power is exercised by the government, while legislative power is vested in both the government and two chambers of parliament, the Assembly of Representatives and Assembly of Councillors. The 442,000 square miles of country are divided into grids that encompass villages. The mayors of these often small villages are known as moquadem; they are they eyes and ears of the King. Nothing gets by their attention.

Supporting the moquadem is the village Association charged with making decisions in the village. These associations are composet exclusively of men; in Muslim Morocco, men are undeniably in control of government and women are confined to affairs of the home, ideal for bringing-up young children.

Getting Metodo 3 on the ground operationally in Morocco was going to be difficult. It was clear the moquadem structure could not be clandestinely circumvented or subverted without running a very real risk of interdiction and punitive reprisal. This meant Morocco had to be worth the effort and the risk.

I called a friend who used to work the Moroccan desk for MI6. We met for lunch in the bowels of the Institute of Directors for lunch. It was to be a revelatory meeting.

PART SNIPPED

I briefed Brian Kennedy and Metodo 3 and Brian set about his contacts in an effort to pave the way to seek permission from the King of Morocco, King Mohammed VI, to enter the Kingdom to look for her. The King’s consort, Princess Salma, was already sympathetic to Madeleine’s plight. Eventually, with the help of the British Embassy in Rabat, a deal was struck.

On a strict understanding that the King’s approval was unofficial and immediately deniable; on the proviso that nothing would be done to the detriment of the sovereign standing and good reputation of the Kingdom, and on the unequivocal basis that any arrest or interdiction be undertaken in collaboration with the office of Director General of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire - the Moroccan Secret Service - and that we were escorted at all times by a representative of the Royal Guard, we were in.

Secretly, with Brian Kennedy’s jet to be located at Rabat on standby, on the first confirmation of a sighting of Madeleine she would be quickly removed straight to the jet, diplomacy and bureaucracy taking a back-seat.

Brian Kennedy and I selected the Metodo 3 agent to be on the ground, undoubtedly their best. Quiet, unassuming, with a poor grasp of English, nonetheless he was good at undercover work and discrete surveillance. Synchronised with the infiltration, Helping to Find Maledeine had agreed to produce a poster of Madeleine in Arabic to be delivered and distributed by the moquadems at the King’s direction.

Military-grade maps of Morocco, new satellite communications, medical equipment, gold sovereigns, and field kit, were all assembled for Paddy [= Patrick Kennedy] and me who were to join Metodo 3’s agent on the ground for a month. The single Royal Guard representative, Mohammed, had been introduced to us via the British Embassy in Rabat by ’phone; he spoke excellent English and came across as being both confident and knowledgeable. As we planned our route, based on the more ‘quality’ of sightings of Madeleine in Morocco, Mohammed briefed us as to the more dangerous of areas we would traverse and the protocol we were to adopt when in these higher-risk locations. At least he would be armed.

We received [information from a person purporting to be] a Moroccan English teacher who said s[he] knew that Madeleine was being held by a family of fisher folk by the shore of the Massa Lagoon, about an hour’s drive south of Agadir…the message described how the fisher-family was being paid to hold and look after Madeleine until she had physically aged and matured…During this time Madeleine was being dressed in traditional Moroccan child’s attire, was being taught Arabic, and had her hair cut and dyed…

Popular with tourists and ornithologists alike, birds visiting the Lagoon include flamingos, spoonbill, avocets, ducks, black and spotted sandgouse, godwit, turnstone, dunlin, snipe, black-headed bush shrike, little crake, white stork, black-winged stilt, marsh harrier and osprey. As far as cover for Metodo 3 was concerned, armed with binoculars, this ornithologists’ paradise was an excellent plume of cover.

While Paddy went to see his doctor to get the necessary inoculations for the trip, I busied myself co-ordinating the ground operation with the ladies of Helping to Find Maledeine who were going to pre-empt our arrival with a poster distribution.

Brian Kennedy walked in to Knutsford late in the afternoon…

REST SNIPPED


Other events around this time

Sat Sep 8 McCanns made arguidos

Mon Sep 10 McCanns return to England

Weds Sep 12  Dr Kate McCann says Edward Smethurst first contacted them

Fri Sep 14 Kennedy and Smethurst attend meeting with McCanns and several lawyers in London

Sat Sep 15 Gerry McCann blog entry:

“To that end I would like to announce that the Fund will finance a broad range of initiatives in advertising to remind everyone that Madeleine is still missing. These adverts will focus on Spain, Portugal and other parts of Europe and will consist of billboards and other media. This financing of advertisements will complement previous efforts by the Fund and many motivated individuals – family, friends and people touched by our cause”.

"I hope that the general public will continue to support us in this.

"It is so important that we remember: ‘don't you forget about me’- our lovely wee Madeleine.”

John McCann issues a statement along similar lines

Sun Sep 16 Matt Baggott, Leicestershire Police Chief Constable, writes to the media ‘urging restraint’

Mon 17 Sep Clarence Mitchell officially resigns as Director of Tony Blair’s Media Monitoring Unit and begins to work full-time for the McCanns

Thurs Sep 20 McCanns say they meet five lawyers in London

Fri Sep 21 Kate & Gerry McCann publicly offer to take lie detector tests

Sun Sep 23 Press report announcing that Brian Kennedy will help to pay for legal expenses. There is absolutely no mention of him setting up an investigation HQ in Knutsford.

The press reports say:

“An Edinburgh-born tycoon has emerged as the mystery backer of the family of Madeleine McCann. Brian Kennedy, who is estimated to be worth £250m, broke his silence to explain why he is supporting the couple. His money is helping Gerry and Kate McCann have access to some of Britain's leading lawyers as well as the backing of a full-time media liaison officer.

He said: ‘I felt compelled to offer, along with other like-minded businessmen, financial support and the full logistical support of the Latium team. The support is principally our in-house lawyer, Ed Smethurst, and the official spokesman, Clarence Mitchell’

He continued: ‘This will relieve the McCanns of the daily pressure of coordinating the legal teams which will expedite the clearing of Gerry and Kate's names, allowing all the parties to refocus on finding Madeleine’.”

Mon Sep 24 Forensic Scientist from Control Risks comes to take hair samples from Dr Kate McCann, Sean and Amelie. They produced ‘negative results’.

Gerry McCann blog entry:

“Kate and I have been very busy with our legal advisers as we want to be eliminated from the inquiry as soon as possible and start concentrating wholeheartedly again on the search for our daughter. We are very confident this will happen when all the facts are presented together. We are very grateful and thankful to have several businessmen who have pledged financial support to cover legal costs and we were delighted Clarence Mitchell agreed to help us as an official spokesman. It is scary and daunting to imagine how we could have managed to deal with these latter ‘developments’ without such offers of support and commitment. Clarence will try and minimise the impact of the huge media interest in Madeleine’s disappearance on us, as we try and return slowly towards as normal a life as is possible”.

Tues Sep 25 Received a photograph from a Spanish tourist of a girl resembling Madeleine being carried on a peasant’s back. Brian Kennedy calls the McCanns and says he is flying out to Morocco to see if it is Madeleine

Tues 2 Oct Goncalo Amaral removed from the Madeleine McCann case

Fri 5 Oct Gerry McCann blog entry:

“The investigation will have a new coordinator appointed to replace chief inspector Amaral. We are happy to continue cooperating with the Portuguese authorities and in fact as arguidos, we can request that certain investigations are carried out”.

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For discussion, please visit this thread: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t7348-gary-hagland-on-the-mccann-team-s-preparations-to-look-for-madeleine-in-morocco-and-how-the-king-of-morocco-gave-permission-for-metodo-3-to-enter-his-country

"Madeleine McCann could have been abducted by Berbers from North Africa, working in PdL in May 2007, who overheard people talking about Maddie and thought they were talking about the future mother of the coming 'Mahdi': A McCann Team theory

by Tony Bennett on 17.02.14 20:58

PART ONE

The commencement in September 2013 of the final phase of the Doctors McCanns vs Dr Goncalo Amaral libel trial has unleashed a raft of unlikely stories of how and why Madeleine might have been abducted from her holiday apartment in May 2007.

One of the unlikeliest theories of all, however, was being discussed by the McCann Team itself within days of the McCanns’ return from Portugal on 9 September 2007, two days after they had been declared arguidos - suspects - in connection with their daughter’s disappearance. Or it might even have been discussed by the McCann Team before that.

The theory being discussed by the McCann Team is that a Muslim working temporarily in Praia da Luz overheard the McCanns, or friends of theirs, saying the word ‘Maddie’.

So, the theory went, the Muslim thought that maybe the McCanns were talking about the Muslim end-times figure known as ‘The Mahdi’.

Just as the Christian Bible speaks (310 times altogether) of the bodily return of Jesus Christ at the end of time, so the Muslims who put together the Koran – after Mohammed died in 632 AD – developed the idea of a similar, Muslim figure, who would also arise at the end of time. Unlike the Bible’s description of the return of Christ, which is consistent throughout the Old and New Testaments, the ‘Mahdi’ legend takes many different forms.

I have had in my possession, for some three years, drafts of parts of a proposed book written by McCann Team insider Gary Hagland, which he kindly posted to me. Hagland was employed for about six months by the McCann Team, September 2007 to March or April 2008. Hagland’s expertise was financial regulation, compliance and money-laundering. In the Financial Times Director, 30 March 2001, an article about him described as:

“Gary Hagland, a consultant with law firm Wragge & Co. He advises clients on the active management of compliance risks, including money laundering. He works with the Institute of Directors' board consultancy department on the ‘Compliant Board’ initiative that aims to guide company directors through the labyrinth of regulations and procedures that successful compliance demands. Mr Hagland paints a broad picture of the type of non-financial services businesses that may well be targets for the money launderer”. 

I append below, in an Appendix, a Wikiepdia entry about ‘The Mahdi’ in Muslim religious literature.

Hagland was very certainly a member of the McCann Team from early on - September 2007 - see also here:

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t7311-gary-hagland-the-mysterious-seventh-man-in-the-mccann-team-private-investigations

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t7332-gary-hagland-s-seven-months-sep-2007-to-april-2008-close-to-the-heart-of-the-private-madeleine-mccann-investigations

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t7348-gary-hagland-on-the-mccann-team-s-preparations-to-look-for-madeleine-in-morocco-and-how-the-king-of-morocco-gave-permission-for-metodo-3-to-enter-his-country

The details he has given me about his time in the McCann Team have been checkable and I think in substance he told me the truth about his involvement there. Whether he really believed in his ‘Mahdi’ theory is another matter.

Apart from that, verbatim as it came to me direct from Gary Hagland, this is what he wrote about Maddie and ‘The Mahdi’. The emphases in what follows is Hagland’s not mine:

EXTRACT FROM GARY HAGLAND’S PROPOSED BOOK

“Helping To Find Madeleine (HTFM) was a remarkable asset for me, for the effort. Both Kennedys [Brian and Patrick – T.B.] hugely underrated it, though, seeing it as no more than a glorified Tupperware party for bored housewives. Crippling chauvinism aside, from the perspectives of strategy and logistics, the group worked wonders. For example, the fact that I could mull in my mind the question of Madeleine being abducted-to-order by a wealthy Arab family of the Berber tribe, and conceptualise in my mind’s eye a poster on Phillipine tagalog, describing Madeleine, urging Filipino maids working in the United Arab Emirates to call-in to Metodo 3 if they saw her, and that a reward was on offer, was all well and good - but it was HTFM which translated it into reality.

Design, translation, production, distribution, HTFM was a one-stop shop. Any administration required en masse, the HTFM team was on tap, 24/7. In-between, it ploughed its own supportively rich furrow. The integrity of HTFM and the altruistic endeavours of its management got me thinking about charity [PASSAGE SNIPPED]…HTFM was, as far as I was concerned, a true charity in design, form and action.

It was with the support of HTFM in mind that I began to research and anlayse Morocco as a realistic target destination for Madeleine. This was against a backdrop not just of investigative resource but fading resource. The Septemnbr2007 sighting of a white, fair-haired small girl seen being carried papoose-style on the back of a Moroccan peasant woman near the town of Zinat, whose snatched photograph by Clara Torres, a tourist from Albacete, Spain, was splashed across British newspapers with the strap-line: Could this be the face of Madeleine McCann?, focussed  attention that fair-skinned, blonde offspring are not unusual in this region, and that Madeleine could more easily be assimilated and absorbed, than not. It also triggered Brian Kennedy flying to the area in the belief that the sighting was Madeleine.

++++++++


[NOTE by TB: This incident (Brian Kennedy flying out to Morocco allegedly just to check on a sighting) is dealt with on page 278 of the hardback version of Dr Kate McCann’s book, ‘madeleine’. She says in the book: “On 25 September, we heard that a little blonde girl resembling Madeleine had been spotted with a group of Moroccan peasants. We received a photograph, taken by a Spanish tourist, in which the child was being carried on a woman’s back. Although she did look like Madeleine, our first reaction was that she appeared to be too young…Brian Kennedy called us later that evening to ask if we should like him to fly out to Morocco to find out for certain. We weren’t sure if this was necessary or wise, but at the same time, of course, we were desperate to know. So off Brian went in his plane to northern Morocco”.

The little blonde girl turned out to be Bouchra Ben Aisa, a relative of the peasant woman carrying her.

There was a burst of publicity about Madeleine being in Morocco five days later, on Sunday 30 September. The Daily Mail’s headline ran: ‘Madeleine: McCanns' investigators follow sightings to Morocco’. The Mail report told us: “The McCanns are ramping up the hunt for Madeleine in Morocco following a string of sightings. The latest sighting - each triggering an ‘emotional rollercoaster’ for parents Gerry and Kate - was ruled out this week when a tourist’s holiday snap was revealed to be a farmer's daughter. But private investigators are going to North Africa to re-interview witnesses in three other sightings. And the advertising campaign is going into overdrive with TV adverts in Arabic appealing for sightings. The team [of] private investigators is being paid for by double-glazing magnate Brian Kennedy…”

On the same day, The Times filed a report headed: ‘McCanns send sleuths to Morocco’, telling us: “The parents of Madeleine McCann have hired a team of private investigators to search for her in Morocco…on the 150th day since Madeleine disappeared, it emerged that a millionaire benefactor is paying tens of thousands of pounds a week for a private security firm to re-interview witnesses and investigate paedophile networks in Morocco.  The McCanns are convinced that Madeleine could have been smuggled to north Africa after four independent sightings of a girl matching her description…The team of private investigators in Morocco is being paid for by Brian Kennedy, the £350m home improvements tycoon, who last week pledged to fund their fight-back. Kennedy himself travelled to Rabat last week for a progress report [my italics]”. 

So, did Kennedy fly out to Rabat to see if Bouchra Ben Aisa was Madeleine, or, as The Times reported, for a ‘progress report on what his men were doing in Morocco?’ The latter seems more likely, since The Times report told us that Kennedy was already ‘…paying tens of thousands of pounds a week’ for ‘a private security firm’ to ‘re-interview witnesses and investigate paedophile networks in Morocco’. Kennedy, it seemed, may already have had people on the ground in Morocco. 

And indeed, that was confirmed by a report in the Daily Mail on 5 November. It featured one of Kennedy’s men in Morocco, Ali El Bouazaout. The Mail told us: “Tourist guide Ali El Bouazaout, who speaks seven languages, is just one of the men to become involved with the search and has travelled more than 1,000 miles scouring the country for the little girl. ‘I have been all over Morocco looking for Madeleine - to Marrakesh, to Fez, even to the Sahara, showing her picture to people, hoping someone will recognise her’, he said. ‘And if I find her, I will be rich. I have been promised I will never have to work again, maybe £1 million’. The tourist guide joined the hunt after Mr Kennedy went into Morocco after a suspected sighting in Zinat, in the Rif mountains. ‘Brian flew into Morocco in his private jet looking for Madeleine’, he said. ‘I was waiting outside the Hertz rental car company office by the airport and that is where I met him [my italics]. I worked as his guide and translator. I went with him to Zinat to look for Madeleine, but it was not her. Then I went with him to Rabat to the British Embassy. I know him very well. [my italics]. I have been all over the country, more than 1,400 kilometres [900 miles], showing Madeleine's pictures.

Then Kennedy spoke to the Daily Express: “…Mr Kennedy, 47, confirmed the Moroccan tour guide was involved with the hunt: ‘I know Ali. He is a sweet guy. Yes, I promised him a reward [£1 million], but that is not the reason he is doing this…he was the guy who was involved with the first sighting in Morocco. He was the man who went with us to find the girl in Zinat, who turned out to look like Madeleine but was actually a Moroccan girl”.
From the above, it seems certain that before he took his flight to Morocco on 25 September 2007, Kennedy had already made arrangements to meet  Ali El Bouazaout outside Hertz car rentals. The would have already known Ali El Bouazaout, either directly or through an intermediary. Possibly Bouazaout was someone that Método 3 had already contacted and who had agreed to work for Kennedy. There is, in short, doubt as to whether Kennedy flew to Morocco on 25 September, as suggested both by Gary Hagland and Dr Kate McCann.

Now back to Gary Hagland’s draft book… ]

SEE PART TWO