Maddie's family want excavations
Rogério Alves, the McCanns lawyer, says the police must take a position on the lead provided by the businessman that guarantees that the cadaver is in Murat's garden
by Ana Luísa Nascimento
The McCann family lawyer defends that the authorities should investigate the lead provided by a South African businessman that guarantees that Maddie, who disappeared in 2007, is buried in the garden of Briton Robert Murat, in the Algarve.
“The family has no technical means to judge if this is true, it does not investigate. What the family expects is for the police to take a position on this matter, to verify the site”, said Rogério Alves to CM, following the private investigation by Stephen Birch, who has already informed the Judiciary Police of the steps taken in Murat's garden with a georadar machine, through which he claims to have detected changes in the subsoil.
Rogério Alves clarifies that the family does not know the South African businessman who made claims that a cadaver is buried in that place, 60 centimetres bellow ground, and adds: “If a person makes a statement as peremptory as that, then the family expects for the police to verify and confirm or deny that claim. If they don't do it, they should explain why.”
“To dissipate doubts there is no alternative”
António Teixeira, former chief inspector of the Judiciary Police Homicide Unit, defends that the Attorney General's Office should reopen the investigation to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. In his view, excavations in Robert Murat's garden should be made, following the private investigation of the South African businessman Stephen Birch. “To dissipate all doubts, there is no better alternative than to carry out the excavation”, said the former chief inspector of the Judiciary Police.
Details
May 3, 2007
Madeleine, 3 years-old, disappeared on the night of the 3rd of May of 2007 from the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz, Lagos.
Parents Arguidos
After Robert Murat, Madeleine's parents were constituted as arguidos, in September 2007, suspected of concealment of a cadaver.
Archived Process
The investigation was archived in July 2008, but the process might be reopened by initiative of the Attorney General's Office.
in Correio da Manhã, July 7, 2012, paper edition, page 10
A different version for the UK
«(...) Kate and Gerry McCann believe she is still alive and would not comment on Mr Birch's claims.»
in Police Probe Madeleine 'Grave' Theory, by Martin Brunt, Sky News [Murdoch's News International], July 6, 2012
«(...) The youngster’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann yesterday refused to comment on the latest claims about their daughter(...)
A source close to the McCanns, of Rothley, Leics, said: It appears this so-called investigator used scanning equipment during a visit to the resort in June.
Kate and Gerry do not believe there is anything credible in what he is saying. It seems to be complete lies. If there was any truth in it, police would be out there digging up the area looking for possible remains.»
in Madeleine McCann Grave Yards from her hols flat, by Jerry Lawton, Daily Star, July 7, 2012
Coincidentally...
A “report” made in situ, that is in the Algarve, by a former Met detective at the request of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid, The Sun, published last April resurfaced, this time in its entirety on Sky News, also owned by Rupert Murdoch, coincidentally just five days after the South African businessman, Stephen Birch gave an exclusive video interview to the Portuguese Expresso newspaper, more exactly on June 28, the same day Birch left Portugal. Incidentally, the Expresso newspaper media lawyer is Isabel Duarte, the McCann couple libel lawyer.
The report which is nothing more than an opinion, and a biased one in my view, stated that “Madeleine may still be alive” and that she is “likely” with a “childless couple” in “Madeira, even Brazil” or somewhere where Portuguese is spoken, discarding crucial witnesses statements, dismissing the two former arguidos odd actions and attitudes as something totally “irrelevant”, disregarding the time-lines in an apparent attempt to fit the only and already discredited sighting of a non-reliable witness - the sole evidence of the abduction theory maintained by the McCann couple, as well as the usual bashing of the inept Portuguese police, and surprise, of NPIA's Top Criminal Profiler Lee Rainbow, author of one of the most damning reports to appear in the Maddie McCann process, as having done a “misguided analysis”. I could go on... but JB at his blog has already covered this issue extensively.
The timing of the resurfaced report is interesting, to say the least. If it was re-published to bury the soon to appear Birch's news of Maddie's alleged grave as a counter spin or for another not so obvious reason, is something that we will understand in a very near future.
