Where Is Madeline McCann ?

[Rasputin]

Madeleine McCann's parents to learn of case against them

The parents of Madeleine McCann could be given access to the Portuguese police's files on them within a fortnight, one of their lawyers has said.

Rogerio Alves said the police case against the McCanns could be made public on April 14, when the official secrecy period covering the hunt for the missing girl comes to an end.

The Portuguese lawyer said this period could only be extended in major inquiries, such as those involving terrorism and organised crime.

Portuguese detectives will travel to the UK on Monday to spend the week re-interviewing the seven friends on holiday with the McCanns when Madeleine went missing.

Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, remain formal suspects in the case but have not been charged and deny all wrongdoing.

Clarence Mitchell, the couple's spokesman, welcomed the lawyer's comments and called for the "arguido" status to be lifted.

Mr Mitchell said: "We would hope that the police will do the decent and proper thing and open up the files.

"I would go further than that, and say once they have completed the interviews with the the friends, they should go back to Portugal and assess the evidence and eliminate Kate and Gerry and allow everyone once again to concentrate on the search for Madeleine."

[Rasputin]

Parents of Madeleine McCann set to be cleared of suspicion

FOR almost 10 months, the world has looked at them as suspects behind one of the most vile acts a parent could perpetuate on a child.

But the cloud of suspicion will tomorrow be lifted from Kate and Gerry McCann with Portuguese police to officially rule they have no idea what happened to their missing daughter Madeleine.

Madeleine was six days short of her fourth birthday in May last year when she was apparently snatched from her bed in the village of Praia da Lux on the Algarve coast in Portugal and within days became the most talked about missing person in the world.

Yesterday, after 14 months of investigations that spanned most of Europe, detectives ruled there was no longer any evidence to implicate her parents and any evidence they did have was "inconclusive".

"The police report is not conclusive nor does it point in any particular direction - kidnap, murder or the concealment of Madeleine's body," a Portuguese source close to the judicial police said.

A judge overseeing the investigation was now likely to shelve the case until such time as new evidence is unearthed.

The McCann family's official spokesman Clarence Mitchell cautiously welcomed the prospect the "arguido", or official suspect status, was to be removed from the British pair and the world would finally view them as a "wronged couple".

"Clearly, if they are effectively cleared by the shelving of this case in one sense it has to be welcomed because it means they will not be charged with any criminal offence and that's quite right, they should not be," Mr Mitchell said yesterday.

"They should not have been in this position. They have suffered for long enough."

Mr Mitchell said police should now also release the several boxes of files and evidence so the private detective agency tasked by the family with finding Madeleine could continue its hunt for the toddler.

Anglo-Portuguese property consultant Robert Murat, the first person to be made an arguido, is also expected to be officially cleared.

The McCann's Portuguese lawyer Carlos Pinto de Abreu said he would now like to review all the evidence and clues that had been gathered "to be in a position to do what the McCanns always wanted which is to assure themselves the investigation was properly conducted and continue to look for their daughter".

There are still fears the Portuguese authorities, on a face-saving exercise, could charge the couple with abandonment.

Last night, friends and neighbours of the McCanns in the Midlands town of Rothley criticised Portuguese police for bungling the investigation and called for them to now leave 40-year-old Kate and her 39-year-old husband alone.

Rothley resident Heather Wheeler said: "The Portuguese haven't been straight from the start, and I think they ought to leave them alone," local Heather Wheeler said.

Since last September, police theorised Mrs McCann who, like her husband is a doctor, accidentally killed Madeleine - possibly with an overdose - and covered up the death, claiming she was abducted.

The focus was on a Renault Scenic the McCanns hired almost a month after Madeleine's disappearance where it was suggested traces of her DNA had been found. But the evidence was never conclusive enough to justify re-interviewing the family.

The case was also muddied when the so-called Tapas Seven - the friends the McCanns were eating with on the night they left Madeleine and her two-year twins in the hotel room alone and she vanished - also gave inconclusive accounts of the night.

[Rasputin]

Kate and Gerry McCann cleared over Madeleine disappearance

The parents of Madeleine McCann said that there was no cause for celebration after they were cleared by the Portuguese authorities yesterday, 14 months after the disappearance of their daughter.

After the investigation was shelved, Gerry and Kate McCann described their “utter despair” at being named as suspects. The Portuguese police announced that they had lifted the arguido (suspect) status from the couple and were shelving the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance from the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz in May last year.

The arguido status was also lifted from Robert Murat, the British property developer living in Portugal who was the first man to be named as a suspect.

Speaking in Rothley, Leicestershire, yesterday the McCanns, both 40, described the devastating impact of being labelled suspects and the effect this had on the investigation.

Mrs McCann said: “We welcome the news today but it is in no way cause for celebration. It is hard to describe how utterly despairing it was to be named arguidos and subsequently portrayed in the media as suspects in our own daughter's abduction. It has been equally devastating to witness the detrimental effect this status has had on the search for Madeleine.”

Mr McCann refused to confirm whether the couple would take legal action against the Portuguese authorities, saying: “Our priority has always been to search for Madeleine. Anything else is secondary and will be considered in due course.”

He added that the family had no immediate plans to return to Portugal.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ spokesman, said the couple’s lawyers would be making an immediate application for full access to the police files so they could follow up any leads.

He said: “There is a degree of relief but no air of celebration whatsoever. They should never have been arguidos. This shows them to be the wronged couple they are.”

Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro, Portugal’s Attorney-General, told police to halt the investigation into of Madeleine’s disappearance.

A statement released by his office confirmed that it had decided to “close the file on the investigation concerning the disappearance of the minor Madeleine McCann due to lack of evidence that any crime was committed by the persons placed under formal investigation”.

The files have been archived but they will be reviewed periodically and could be reopened if new evidence emerges, he said.

Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family’s holiday apartment on May 3, 2007, as her parents dined in a nearby restaurant with friends.

Police named Mr Murat, 34, as their first suspect but later focused their investigation on the McCanns. All three have strenously denied any involvement.

Mr Murat also welcomed the clearing of his name, adding: “It doesn’t take away from the fact that there is still a child missing, which is very sad. It would be better to be cleared and know exactly what happened, and have a feeling of finality, but that hasn’t happened.”

According to reports yesterday, one key error that led to the McCanns being declared suspects was made by Britain’s own Forensic Science Service.

The report, apparently from the Portuguese authorities and which was leaked to the London Evening Standard newspaper, states that the Policia Judiciaria, Portugal’s criminal investigation department, was told that DNA evidence found in the couple’s hire car, on the window sill of their holiday apartment and in the car park of the apartment complex, belonged to Madeleine.

The document claims that it was given categorically as her DNA and as a result the McCanns were questioned and later made suspects. But, one month later, the forensic service wrote another report saying that it could not be sure that those findings were correct.

[Rasputin]

Murat's £800,000 - a minor marketing expense

The 2007 marketing budget for the Sun was estimated at £16m, that for the News of the World at £5m - and the figures are likely to be higher this year. The budget for the Daily Mail may be close to £20m. When you look at those figures, £72,727 seems like small change. But that is the figure you reach if you divide the collective damages of £800,000 paid to Robert Murat and two others falsely linked to the Madeleine McCann abduction, between the 11 offending newspapers, including the Sun, News of the World and the Mail. Legal fees will probably boost the cost to each paper well beyond £100,000 - but, if you regard smear stories as a circulation booster, you might reasonably treat the overall costs as a minor charge on the marketing budget.

Certainly, it is unlikely any editors will pay with their jobs. They and their journalists knew full well what they were doing but, for several reasons, clearly thought the risks worth running.

First, newspapers now live in an intensely competitive environment - TV, radio and the internet surround every story with comment and speculation and, as newspaper websites show (and still showed last week), the level of interest in the McCanns and everything connected with them was unprecedented. Yet facts about the case were sparse, partly because the Portuguese police do not brief journalists as assiduously as their British counterparts. Once flown out to Praia da Luz, reporters could hardly keep emailing their newsdesks declaring, like the BBC announcer of the 1920s, that "there is no news tonight".

Second, the press increasingly assumes that any suspect in a major crime case is fair game. I have written several times in this column about how newspapers push at the laws of contempt, publishing any gossip they can get, not only during police investigations (which is permissible) but also after arrest, and increasingly even after charge. Such coverage risks prejudicing a subsequent trial, yet the attorney general and the judges repeatedly fail to act, except in the most blatant cases. Equally important, the coverage potentially libels anyone who is subsequently released without charge or found innocent. That is particularly the case for Muslims questioned about terror "plots", where it is not even certain a crime has been committed.

Why do more victims of such coverage not sue? The answer is they are usually too poor to afford legal costs and too frightened to draw further attention to themselves. Moreover, libel laws, while notoriously putting the onus on publishers to prove the truth of allegations, also require litigants to show damage to their reputations or, better still, their livelihoods. The most expensive libel case that crossed my desk as an editor concerned a full-time author of popular romances who was falsely accused of plagiarism and whose ongoing publishing contract stated that she would be dropped if she was ever suspected of such a thing. Crime suspects, however, are rarely respectable pillars of society, which is partly why the police pick them up in the first place. They don't have much of a reputation to damage.

Murat, a British expatriate property consultant, and his two friends, an ex-business partner and an IT consultant, were different in several respects. They did not have criminal records. Murat was declared an arguido (a status for which there is no equivalent in English law and which is nearly, but not quite, conveyed by the word "suspect"), but he was never arrested because the police had no evidence against him. Indeed, he became an arguido only because a British redtop journalist expressed concerns about him. The libels, which included false allegations of paedophiliac tendencies and, in the Daily Express's case, comparisons to Ian Huntley, were as gross as can be imagined.

Murat's means were modest, but lawyers were willing to act for him on a "no win, no fee" basis. It is often argued that such conditional fees, introduced in 1998, put the poor on an equal footing with the rich. But lawyers accept these cases only when they are reasonably certain of victory. Even then, the pressure to settle out of court is strong. Conditional fee agreements do not include court costs, notably witnesses' expenses. If the case had been lost, Murat might have been liable for the newspapers' costs as well, though he probably took out insurance. All this helps explain why he didn't get - from 11 newspapers and nearly 100 separate stories - much more than half the £1m Elton John received more than 20 years ago for just one story in the Sun, and why the apologies to him and his friends could be buried on inside pages.

The Guardian columnist George Monbiot last week described Britain's libel laws as "a national disgrace" and argued that they are too heavily biased against defendants. He is right, where litigants are rich and powerful; and even more right, where defendants, such as small magazines or websites, lack the resources of the big press groups. If small publishers lose, they can be stung for enormous "success fees" from the litigants' lawyers, who may double their normal rates to cover the risks of coming away with nothing.

Conditional fee agreements are increasingly used by wealthy litigants, such as Naomi Campbell in her protracted case against the Mirror. As often happens, changes intended to benefit the less well-off have been eagerly exploited by the rich. For the poor and powerless, against whom the mass circulation press commits its most pernicious libels, the law still provides inadequate protection.

[Rasputin]

Portuguese police vow to search "to the ends of the Earth"

Almeida Rodrigues, national director of the Judicial Police, has insisted they will not give up even after prosecutors archived the case.

The £2.5 million 14-month investigation has failed to find any sign of Madeleine, who went missing from her hotel room while on holiday in Praia da Luz on the Algarve on May 3 last year.

Madeleine's parents Gerry and Kate, and expat Robert Murat have all had their status as "arguidos", or formal suspects, revoked.

Mr Rodrigues told a Portuguese newspaper the police would continue to chase up every credible lead they received, and would "travel to the ends of the Earth if needs be."

He said: "As with other unexplained disappearances, there are some cases that are always open.

"The fact that the criminal process has been archived does not mean the case is closed.

"A case only stops being investigated if there is a successful criminal trial."

Mr Rodrigues was reacting to comments from his predecessor Alipio Ribeiro, who had criticised the decision to archive the case.

Mr Ribeiro said: "A case of disappearance of a minor cannot be closed, for lack of evidence, so soon after the tragedy.

"A rushed closure can be harmful, perhaps definitively, to subsequent clarification."

But Mr Rodrigues insisted his team will not give up the hunt, comparing the case to that of 11-year-old Rui Pedro, who disappeared in March 1998 in Lousada, near Porto.

Meanwhile, the former head of the Maddy investigation is due to publish his book about the case on Thursday.

Disgraced Goncalo Amaral has promised "explosive" revelations about the investigation.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCann's spokesman however has warned the couple may sue if the book suggests they were involved in their daughter's disappearance.

The McCanns have meanwhile declined to comment on the leaked police report of the investigation that was posted online.

An official 57-page summary of the massive final dossier assembled by Portuguese police, was placed on the website of the Portuguese newspaper Expresso, detailing why the McCanns had been named as "arguidos".

[Rasputin]

Belgian Police Study Video in Madeleine McCann Case, Belga Says

Belgian police are studying a bank's surveillance video footage for possible clues into the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann, news agency Belga reported, citing Brussels police spokesman Johan Berckmans.

Berckmans said police were checking a report that a security agent at a Brussels branch of KBC bank claimed to have seen an English-speaking girl resembling Madeleine on Aug. 4, according to Belga.

Portuguese authorities said on July 21 they had closed the case of Madeleine, who vanished from a resort in the Algarve in May 2007 just before her fourth birthday. Her disappearance set off an international search.

[Rasputin]

New slur on Madeline McCann's father Gerry by shamed cop

Shamed Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral stooped to a new low last night - disgracefully claiming Gerry McCann buried daughter Madeleine on a beach the night she went missing.

In his most sickening outburst yet, sacked Amaral said Gerry went back days later to move her body so the police would never find it.

Last night Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns official spokesman, said: "Mr Amaral is a complete disgrace. His repetitive slurs are not only grossly defamatory but they are completely unfounded.

"What he says is so utterly at odds with reality it beggars belief.

"Kate and Gerry are looking and watching at everything he does and will not hesitate to take legal action against him if he continues to act in this sickening manner." Last week Kate herself spoke angrily about Amaral. She said: "As a professional and a person he has been a disgrace."

[Rasputin]

Seeking Andrew Gosden, Not Denise Pipitone And Demonising Gypsies

One year on, missing Andrew Gosden is still a blank space in family’s heart”

Andrew Godsen is missing. He ran away form home one year ago. He was 14. Watch the parents…

As with the parents of Madeleine McCann, the Gosdens are leading a life suspended. Unlike the McCanns, they have not done so in a blaze of global publicity and suspicion. Mr Gosden said that he and his wife felt “deeply, deeply sorry” for Gerry and Kate McCann and suspected that the two families “have an awful lot in common”, in all but one respect.

Andrew Godsen ran away. Did Madeleine McCann?

“You get a lot of press if your child is little, blonde and female, but it hurts just as much when you’re missing a teenage son.”

It’s a comment on the press, and on we who read the papers, a comment on how Our Maddie is mentioned in each and every missing person’s case that reaches the national press.

Says the caring hack: “So, tell me, Little Johnny is missing, and can you now relate to the McCanns better and feel their pain?”

How many people go missing?

It is estimated that 210,000 people are reported missing every year, 140,000 of them aged under 18. Of these, 100,000 have not reached their 16th birthday. The majority, 75 per cent, return home within two days, and 90 per cent are back within a month. After a year, according to Metropolitan Police figures, 99 per cent of reported runaways have been found. But not Andrew. He has vanished, seemingly without trace.

DAILY MAIL: “Greek police say girl found on *** is not Italy’s Madeleine McCann”

A child found on the Greek island of *** is not the missing Denise Pipitone, dubbed Italy’s Madeleine McCann.

Yes…

Greek police had seized the girl and arrested a 34-year-old Roma woman she was with following a tip off from Interpol after a family friend of the missing girl thought she had spotted her on ***.

A gypsy! You can never trust one…

But DNA tests proved the girl was not Denise, but in fact the child of the woman arrested.

Let’s get the gypsies! Let’s fingerprint them and make them criminals. They steal children, like the Arabs…

[Rasputin]

British police will consider whether it is in the public interest to release information about their involvement in the Madeleine McCann inquiry.

Leicestershire Constabulary, which led the British side of the investigation for their counterparts in Portugal, said it must apply the 'public interest test' before agreeing to disclosure.

Linda Dempsey, of the force's data protection department, said: "An initial meeting has now been held and from this we are still in the process of preparing the Public Interest Test regarding the intended response.

"It will be necessary to consult with other agencies to assist in this matter in order for us to give the due consideration that must be given to such a high profile case and the need to balance the needs for disclosure or not."

Anyone is able to access information held by a public authority under the Freedom of Information Act, but the Act contains exemptions to the right of access "to protect legitimate interests and sensitivities", says the Department of Constitutional Affairs.

Ms Dempsey added: "At the heart of this tragic case is an innocent little girl who went missing in May 2007."

[Rasputin]

Dna tests were being carried out last night on a eight-year-old girl to see if she is Italy's version of Madeleine McCann.

Denise Pipitone vanished from outside her grandma's house near Palermo in September 2004.

But an Italian tourist spotted a girl who looked like Denise on the Greek island of *** and decided to raise the alarm.

A photograph was sent to Denise's mum Piera who said: "I have seen so many photos over the years but the shape of the eyes is exactly that of my Denise.

"I have asked for a DNA test and one is being carried out. I don't want to get my hopes up."

Madeleine McCann has been missing since last May. A spokesman for her parents said: "If this is Denise then it will give Kate and Gerry immense strength and hope that Madeleine will be found."

[Rasputin]

Wife of investigator attacks Kate McCann

The wife of the Portuguese detective, Goncola Amaral, who was sacked from the investigation, has published an open letter to Kate McCann. Sky News reports that Sofia Amaral has written an emotionally laden letter in reponse to Kate McCann’s calling her husband “a disgrace”.

The letter published in the Portuguese paper, Correio, addresses Madeleine McCann’s mother as “my dear friend Mrs Kate”.

But the letter is sarcastic: ”You will forgive my boldness, but after I read your comment concerning Goncalo Amaral, my husband and the father of my daughters, I cannot avoid sending you these words of gratefulness…As a coordinator of criminal investigation for the Polícia Judiciária, my husband has always refused to sit around from nine to five in the comfortable chair in his office, as his hierarchical status implies…Instead, he spent the day (and very often the night) with the investigators on the terrain, coordinating searches, surveillances, apprehensions and other diligences.”

[Rasputin]

Newspaper damages for Madeleine McCann coverage

A British newspaper group has apologized and agreed to pay damages to seven companions of the parents of missing British child Madeleine McCann for stories that claimed the group covered up facts related to her disappearance.

Express Newspapers agreed to pay 375,000 pounds (US$646,000) in libel damages to the group that had dinner with the child's parents the evening she vanished in Portugal.

The settlement was read out at a London court Thursday morning.

Several British newspapers have published apologies to Madeleine's parents for suggesting the couple caused the death of their missing daughter and then covered it up.

In July, a man named as a suspect in the case also won an apology and 600,000 pounds in libel damages from several British newspapers.

[Rasputin]

Two years ago, 3-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared while her parents were at dinner during a family vacation in Portugal.



Now, the McCanns are speaking out in a heartbreaking new interview to air on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the day after the anniversary of her disappearance.

When asked whether she allows herself to imagine the worst, Kate McCann, who was once a suspect in the unsolved case with her husband Gerry, reveals, "I do. As a mom, inevitably there are times when I do. There are the times that I kind of dip down."

And does she suspect an abductor spent time watching the family before Madeleine disappeared, Kate says, "It makes you feel sick, actually, when you think about it."

Instead of dividing them, the tragedy and subsequent accusations that they were involved in the disappearance served to strengthen their bond, Gerry says.

"A child abduction ... could destroy any family. There's no doubt about it. It's one of the most devastating things. But ... I think it's helped us stay strong and stay together. We're really united in our goal and our love of Madeleine and [her younger siblings, twins] Sean and Amelie."

While officials closed the case last summer, the McCanns emphasized their commitment to finding their daughter. Kate, in fact, has kept her room unchanged, ready for her return.

"It's all ready," she says. "I go in about twice a day. Morning and evening, [I] just say hello. Tell her we're still going, you know, we're going to do everything we can to find her."

[Rasputin]

Police Focus on New Suspect in Hunt for Madeleine McCann

A former soldier is the latest person linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann two years ago.

Raymond Hewlett, 64, is said to have been staying with his family in a motorhome about an hour's drive from the Praia da Luz resort where the McCanns were vacationing in May 2007. He has now been tracked, by a British newspaper, to a hospital in Germany, where he is being treated for throat cancer.

Hewlett is said by the reports in the U.K. to be a convicted pedophile with a history of sex attacks on young girls over more than 30 years. Now police forces in the U.K. are looking into possibly extraditing him from Germany so he can questioned over some existing cases.

Early Friday, he was pictured in one tabloid, the Daily Mirror under the headline Madeleine: New Probe. Rival paper, The Sun titled its Hewlett story Child Sex Beast in Maddie Probe.

In The Mirror story, Alan and Cindy Thompson, who know Hewlett, recounted a conversation in which he said he had been approached by "gypsy tourists" offering to buy one of his six children. The Thompsons said they had no idea about his past until they returned to the U.K.

Hewlett has denied any involvement in the McCann case and is quoted as saying, "I've done nothing wrong, nothing, nothing, nothing."

Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell tells PEOPLE the McCann family have been aware of Hewlett for some time. "He remains a person of interest to the Madeleine investigators. But this is only one line of inquiry."

Mitchell confirms that investigators, hired by the family, will head out to Germany when they can. He added that they are liaising with British police forces over the case. "The investigators are seeking to establish the truth of some of the claims," he adds. "Certainly, there are questions to answer."

The specially-selected McCann team of former police detectives has been in Portugal all this week, as they switch from there to the U.K. depending on requirements. "This is an ongoing, continuous process," Mitchell adds.

The news comes after a frantic few weeks for the McCann family. Around the second anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance, her parents Kate and Gerry stepped up their publicity campaign, including heading to America and appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show and releasing an artist rendering of what she might look like now.

There has also been a new British documentary which published a new new sketch of a possible suspect.

[Rasputin]

Madeleine McCann's Parents Vow to Keep Searching

http://www.people.com/people/article...365948,00.html