MADELEINE: SECRET FILES REVEAL FOUR 'SIGHTINGS' IN MOROCCO

by annabel 18.12.11 7:41

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MADELEINE: SECRET FILES REVEAL FOUR 'SIGHTINGS' IN MOROCCO

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The Spanish private detective agency’s secret files are key “sightings” of Madeleine in Morocco

Sunday December 18,2011
By EXCLUSIVE from James Murray

SCOTLAND
YARD detectives have been given a vast dossier of unpublished details
about possible sightings of Madeleine McCann that might provide a
breakthrough in the four-year hunt.

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

Metodo 3 director
general Francisco Marco Fernandez last week gave 30 boxes of documents
to four Yard detectives at his office in Barcelona.

Speaking
exclusively to the Sunday Express, the private eye said: “I think this
could be a significant moment in the effort to discoverwhat happened to
the child. I am very glad all our leads will now be looked at by the
Yard because they are important.

“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.”

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.

"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"
Metodo 3 director general Francisco Marco Fernandez

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

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

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

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

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

Mr
Fernandez would not say if any of the four sightings in the secret
dossier were already known but said: “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.”

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.”

However, Mr Amaral told the Sunday
Express that Metodo 3 never provided a strong lead. “They gave
information about sightings but it was not enough and you could not
prove it was Madeleine,” he said.

A source close to Metodo 3
said: “Officially or unofficially Metodo 3 have never stopped looking
for Madeleine. It was the biggest job they were ever given. People
literally went all over the world and it has become very personal for
many of them.”

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.”

In November the Scotland Yard
detectives hunting for Madeleine spent two days talking to high-ranking
Spanish detectives with expertise in organised crime syndicates in Spain
and Portugal. Among theories being examined was that she was smuggled
out of Portugal on a yacht which sailed to Barcelona.

At the city’s marina on May 7, 2007, a British holidaymaker told private investigators about a bizarre encounter.

In the early hours a woman asked him if he was about to deliver her “new” daughter.

That woman has never been traced.

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.”

Kate has criticised
officers in the botched Portuguese investigation for not bothering to
follow up leads in North Africa, particularly the sighting in
Marrakesh.

In her book, Madeleine, she tells of her anger that little was done about the sighting at a petrol station near Marrakesh.

A month later police were told the witness had still not been interviewed.

She writes: “It was intolerable. This was our daughter’s life they were dealing with, not a stolen car radio.”

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by Kololi 18.12.11 11:52

Wasn't this the Private Detective Agency that declared that they would have Madeleine home for Xmas?

by Guest 18.12.11 11:55

Did they specify Christmas in which year?

by russiandoll 18.12.11 16:40

It may well be that SY are looking through these key sightings and checking as to why the PIs did not follow them through like they were paid to do. What is meant by they took them as far as they could then passed info to th PJ? Unless I am missing something, it was the job of the PIs to follow through until the child was found or the trail went cold.
SY may well be checking as to why the important leads were left to go cold for so long........maybe they are investigating a fraud. And if the fund was fraudulently set up, I would think that they then have to look at the abduction scenario being a fraud, as that was the basis for the fund.....a child has been abducted, Maddie was never simply described as simply missing or disappeared in the early days when the family were trying to publicise things and get public support, was she? Was the whole story to gain publicity that a child had been stolen from her bed by a stranger?
I do not see how a fraudulent fund can be established without the next logical step......the reason for the fund was dishonest also.

by Guest 18.12.11 17:59

russiandoll wrote:It may well be that SY are looking through these key sightings and checking as to why the PIs did not follow them through like they were paid to do. What is meant by they took them as far as they could then passed info to th PJ? Unless I am missing something, it was the job of the PIs to follow through until the child was found or the trail went cold.
SY may well be checking as to why the important leads were left to go cold for so long........maybe they are investigating a fraud. And if the fund was fraudulently set up, I would think that they then have to look at the abduction scenario being a fraud, as that was the basis for the fund.....a child has been abducted, Maddie was never simply described as simply missing or disappeared in the early days when the family were trying to publicise things and get public support, was she? Was the whole story to gain publicity that a child had been stolen from her bed by a stranger?
I do not see how a fraudulent fund can be established without the next logical step......the reason for the fund was dishonest also.

You have hit the nail on the head there russiandoll, they took on a company that were allegedly specialists in finding missing children. As you say, it is their job to track down sightings and find the child. What is the point of paying a PI huge amounts of money if all they do is have a phone number for people to ring with sightings and then just expect to pass the information on the the police for them to do the work. What exactly do the PI's do for their money then. These 8 or so leads, may be by the sound of it the leads that were in the PJ files and subsequently the huge stories that appeared in the press on March 3rd and 4th 2010. Edgar and Cowley had all this info, what have they done about it? We know from one newspaper investigation into the infamous "have you got my daughter" sighting was never investigated properly.

I think SY may well be having a good look at these sightings, and wonder why, if they were so important, they were filed away, and just left gathering dust.

by Gillyspot 18.12.11 18:04

So are the "crack detectives" from Scotland Yard heading off with their suncream to Morocco now? Kate & Gerry McCann (sorry "donors" to their LTD FUND) paid for these leads over 3 years ago and we are to believe that NOTHING has happened since unless they decided they weren't worth following up (or couldn't be bothered) - delete as appropriate? Pull the other one it has bells on

by **Nina** 18.12.11 18:06

Wasn't there a report of a telephone number that was issued but never answered? I have a vague memory of this [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

This was reported about on The Madeleine Foundation.

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Is it ok to put the link or do we need Tony's approval?

by **PeterMac** 18.12.11 18:22

russiandoll wrote:It may well be that SY are looking through these key sightings and checking as to why the PIs did not follow them through like they were paid to do. SNIP

It may be they are also checking why Antonio Giménez Raso invented these sightings in the first place. Who asked him to do so ? Who was pulling his strings ? Was it the McCs themselves, or Mitchell ? Or was he perhaps merely under orders from M3 to keep it all looking good whilst the funds were flowing.
Who knows?

by Gillyspot 19.12.11 7:39

SY may also be asking themselves why the McCanns themselves didn't think these leads were worth following up 4 years ago and also the boxes of evidence worth collecting.

by nomendelta 19.12.11 8:43

One point of concern with all this - the Scotland Yard inquiry is taking place in the heat of the recent claims by journalists that poilice supplied information to them in exchange for cash. Now, surely, given the sensitivity of the Madeleine case they will have taken care to ensure there aren't any leaks or at the very least be plugging any leaks they do discover? Is this info PURELY McCann spin on events (trying to save face in what seemed more like a raid on M3 than "collaboration") or do they have "friends" within the investigation happily giving them info?

I'd hate for this whole thing to go belly up if there's further questions about the integrity of SY.

by Gillyspot 19.12.11 10:08

Nina wrote:Wasn't there a report of a telephone number that was issued but never answered? I have a vague memory of this [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

This was reported about on The Madeleine Foundation.

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Is it ok to put the link or do we need Tony's approval?

That was when Halligen was employed as a crap (Sorry crack) PI by the McCanns. He was only employed for 6 months but no one listened to calls for at least 12 months.

by Guest 19.12.11 10:46

19th December 2011

The Blacksmith Bureau

The dangers of celebrity

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by Kololi 19.12.11 14:27

Marian wrote:Did they specify Christmas in which year?

I felt at the time that it was shameful to announce this in the press but hey that's just my opinion.

I just do not understand if there were these sightings and leads that were not being checked by the Portuguese police how it becomes a "that's that" situation. I understand the part of them being the lead police force but surely somewhere under European law the British Police could have picked up the baton if it was felt the Portuguese had dropped it. - They appear to be doing that now in a sense so why has it taken so long to do what seemed common sensical to do ages ago if there were genuine grounds to suspect that the Portuguese were not doing their job properly?

by russiandoll 19.12.11 16:32

There should be very clear evidence of what was done and when and when and why action ceased in these documents, together with accounts and receipts for travel, hotels and the like. Who apart from SY has obtained these documents to examine them? It will become as clear as day whether or not there were genuine leads that were followed up or not and they will have to answer as to why if they were so important they were left hanging and not taken to any conclusion.
There was a note in yesterday's Express that a reader could have a say but when you got to the end of the piece it said no comments being taken. What a surprise.
The whole piece was spun to read as a criticism of the PJ who were handed these important files and who then ignored them. I think we will elarn that the PIs were the inactive ones and they need to be accountable as do the McCanns who employed them . Did they not keep up with what their PIs were or were not doing? There should be correspondence or lack of it available for SY to read, letters and e mails betweent the couple and the agency. All we have been told is from the mouths of the couple and their PIs and Mr Mitchell of course.......now hopefully no words will be required, honest or otherwise, I hope SY have seized everything, I dont think items were voluntarily handed over at all, I believe SY have just walked in and taken anything and everything they saw as uselul to their review.