Sunday, 18 August 2013 -
What happened to Madeleine McCann?
Madeleine McCann: Have her parents been ‘cleared’ of any involvement in her disappearance’?
by Felicity Hathaway - August 2013
http://whathappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.pt/2013/08/madeleine-mccann-have-her-parents-been_9354.html?spref=tw
The purpose of this short article, intended mainly to those who are maybe ‘newcomers’ to the details surrounding Madeleine McCann’s reported disappearance, is to answer the question: Have Gerry & Kate McCann been ‘cleared’ - formally or otherwise - of any involvement in the disappearance, from the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz, of their daughter?
If, for example, you consult Wikipedia’s article on Madeleine McCann, it states this: “In July 2008, the McCanns were cleared by the Portuguese Attorney-General”. Is this really true?
Background
On Thursday 3 May 2007, Kate McCann reported Madeleine as missing. She was quite clear from the outset that she ‘knew’ Madeleine had been abducted. Thus began the world’s biggest-ever search for a child claimed to be missing. Hundreds of Portuguese police searched for Madeleine and then formally investigated her disappearance. There were thousands of reported ‘sightings’ of Madeleine in dozens of countries; all false.
Things changed in August 2007. Some of Britain’s top police officers, based at the National Police Intelligence Agency, including Britain’s top criminal profiler, Lee Rainbow, advised Portuguese detectives that they should investigate the possible involvement of the McCanns in Madeleine’s disappearance. The Portuguese police called in internationally-renowned British police dog handler Martin Grime to examine locations in Praia da Luz, including the McCanns’ apartment and their hired car.
His two dogs - a cadaver dog and a bloodhound - found the smell of a human corpse in nine separate locations connected to the McCanns, but nowhere else. These included three locations in their apartment, two in their hired car, and two on Kate McCann’s clothes. Blood and body fluids which could have been from Madeleine McCann were found in some of the same locations (see below).
On 7 September 2007, the investigation co-ordinator, Dr Gonçalo Amaral, pulled the McCanns in for questioning, and made them arguidos, that is, formal suspects - on suspicion of hiding Madeleine’s body. While Gerry McCann answered police questions, Kate refused to answer any, replying ‘no comment’. She had every legal right to do so, but it was strange behaviour for someone allegedly looking for her missing daughter.
