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theAuthor theories

published in Sol, on June 30, 2007
an article by Felicia Cabrita and Margarida Davim
Translated by Summer

Madeleine Case - Pact of Silence

Madeleine's parents and the friends with whom they spent their holidays in PDL are suspects in the inquiry. There are contradictory versions about the night of the kidnapping, and an assumed pact of silence in the group

The beginning of June is flowing in a strange way in the Algarve. A chilly wind and overhead clouds help to fill the auditorium of Lagos, where a solidarity concert is being held for the missing english girl. It's been a month since Madeleine McCann vanished without a trace.

A few kilometres from Lagos, in the Ocean Club resort at Praia da Luz, the faint illumination further densifies the climate. At the reception, which leads to the Tapas restaurant, there is nobody. Getting inside is easy.

A portuguese waiter, but with a british `behaviour', strikes the first blow on the journalist's plan: "We only serve dinner to the club's clients". "What about a drink?". He says yes.

It's 9.30 p.m. If we were to believe the several members of the McCann's holiday group, and after several mismatching versions, at this time Madeleine was being carried out of her apartment by a dark-haired man, who would be around 35 years old.

From the same table where the group of nine had dinner on that evening, one tries, in vain, to observe the apartment's front - a ground floor apartment that faces the restaurant. A linoleum screen on the side of Tapas and the corridor of bushes that follows the limits of the apartment's back yards prevents any vigilance to that level.

The image of Madeleine - big blue, questioning eyes and an innocent smile, fixed on the photographic films - is always present. It doesn't leave the conversations of whom passes by. One remembers the words that the mother, Kate Healy, is supposed to have said to a friend (and that the husband, Gerry McCann, did not know): "I had a bad premonition about my children, when I found out the Ocean Club had no baby listening service".

The choice of Algarve as a holiday destination would come to change their lives. Everything was arranged with three other couples, with whom they used to travel. Some of them had recently been to Greece, with their children, and the Mark Warner agency, the same that prepared their trip to the Algarve, had done their itinerary for the islands. According to their reports, the hotel where they stayed had a baby listening service - a service that is assured by four or five members of staff who would control the children while the adults dined, by listening through doors and windows to confirm that everything inside was quiet.

At the Tapas bar, from bartenders to staff from the Kid Club, criticism is whispered: "We have a creche where they left their children for most part of the day, where they could be until 11.30 p.m. without spending another Euro. They could also have used our baby-sitters, who stay with the children in their rooms until 1 p.m. In this case, they would have to pay an extra fee, but these people looked like they could afford it", an employee comments, concluding that "this was a very strange group, that never stayed with their children".

The children's routine

The story of Madeleine looks like a tangled ball of wool. In the last days of April, Kate and Gerry, both 39 and doctors, arrive with their friends in Praia da Luz. The weather is not very good, but the group makes the best of it. The children seem to exist outside of the adults' world. In the morning, Kate would take Madeleine, almost 4, and the 2-year old twins, to the Kid Club. The other couples in the group did the same. While the little ones entertained themselves with collages and paintings, the group divides itself between tennis and jogging until lunchtime. In the creche, the girl's picture is taken: "She was shy and had some difficulty in adapting to the group. She always stayed close to the english children she already knew".

It is at lunchtime that the families socialize a bit. After a short nap, the children go back to the Kid Club, while the parents use the activities that the club offers. They only get to meet again in the late afternoon, when the children's dinner is served. Before 8 p.m., Madeleine and her siblings, who seem to function like a clock, are already asleep. Half an hour later, the group of friends meets at Tapas. The staff remember that they only leave at midnight: "They were very lively and drank a bit too much. I didn't even realize they had children, because I never saw them around".

Mathew Oldfield, one of the elements of the group, is back in England. He reacts with surprise upon the contact of Sol, but he does not avoid the conversation: "We drank. We were on holidays. So what?".

And thus the days followed one upon another, at the Ocean Club. The holiday week is almost over and the group's spirit does not change. Nobody had noticed until then, how the children were kept at a distance.

The most reliable way to undrestand what happened on May 3, when Madeleine disappeared, is to analyze the various versions that emerged.

It would have been 10 p.m. when Kate decided to check the children at the apartment. This is the only moment in the story that gathers consensus. Madeleine had vanished from her bedroom and the twins were sleeping like nothing had happened. The mother was back at the restaurant in one leap. She was disoriented.

PJ called two hours later

In seconds, the resort is in turmoil. The group's four men and the club's employees check every corner. They seem to be oblivious of the essential: to call the authorities. GNR is the first to arrive at the scene, but the news only reach Policia Judiciaria (PJ) more than two hours later. The first explanations arise. Where were the parents when the child disappeared? Gerry explains that, inspired in the scheme that some of the friends had used on their holidays in Greece, the nine members of the group took turns in checking on the children with some regularity.

This is the beginning of a story that will change in many chapters. Gerry starts by saying that he first left the table to check on the children around 9.05 p.m. When he entered the apartment the children were fine, he just noticed that the door to their bedroom was partially open. He looked at the window, which was closed, just as the shutters, and relaxed.

Ten minutes later, his friend Jane Tanner, who went around the apartments, crossed ways with a dark-haired man who was walking in the opposite direction, carrying a child. She didn't make any connections either.

A few minutes later, Mathew Oldfield enters the room, sees the McCann children fast asleep, and notices nothing out of the ordinary. It is at 10 p.m. that Maddie's mother discovers her daughter has disappeared. The window was wide open and the shutters were up.

To GNR, who is in the area with sniffer dogs to search for the child, this is a highly unlikely scenario. One of the military assures: "This is an extremely silent area, where there are practically no passing cars. That shutter was very difficult to lift from the outside, and would have made a lot of noise. It would have been a lot easier to use the door, but there were no signs of a break-in".

This was just one of the reasons why the group became suspicious in the eyes of the investigators. Russell O'Brien, Jane Tanner's husband, is already back in England, but he knows he could be summoned back to Portugal for a deposition anytime. Over the phone with Sol, he tries to keep his british phlegm: "It is normal that we are suspects, and the DNA test is a consequence thereof. We were the closest people involved".

The conversation always comes back to the same issue: the night of the disappearance. The account of that last dinner has disparate versions among the group's members. Some swear that someone left the table every half hour to check on the kids; other reduce that time to half of it. Some say control is made window by window; others say the adults entered each other's apartments.

One of the employees that was on duty that evening does not remember a lot of movement: "I only remember a tall, grey-haired man getting up once from the table". It was Russell, who, two days earlier, also had attended dinner.

An aerobic instructor from the resort entertains the dinner guests at Tapas with a `Quiz'. At 9.30 p.m. the game ends, and Gerry invites her to their table, where she stays for half an hour. During that time, as she later confided to friends, nobody left the table, but one of the chairs was vacant. Najova Chekaya refuses to talk to Sol. And Russell, when the questions start to surround him, loses his sympathy: "I have nothing further to tell you. I am not going to dishonor the compromise I assumed with Kate and Gerry. They want to control all infornation that is disclosed".

Gerry changes his version several times, but he maintains that the door to his children's room was open. Mat revokes his first statement: when he entered Madeleine's room, the door was open and there was more light, as if the shutters had been raised. Here starts to develop the theory that there was already someone inside the apartment. Which reinforces Jane Tanner's version (that she saw a man carrying a child).

Only Jane saw the man carrying a child

But there is a witness whose deposition contradicts this theory. Jeremy Wilkins - a tv producer who had met Maddie's father during their holidays and used to play tennis with him - was walking his eight months old son at that time. He met Gerry, who went out through the apartment's back door after having checked on the children, and the two man exchanged a brief conversation. At that time, if one is to believe the first accounts, Jane would have left Tapas in the direction of the apartment's main entrance, and would have crossed paths with both of them. "It was a very narrow road and I think it would have been almost impossible to walk by without me taking notice", Jeremy says, pointing out the fact that he saw no man carrying a child, as Jane states.

But Jane continues to guarantee that, at the top of the street, she saw a man with a child in his arms.

Although the area is scarcely lit, and the situation did not make her suspicious at the time, she describes the beige trousers, the dark thick jacket and the black classic-style shoes in a detailed way. Once again, Jeremy disagrees: "If that happened, I would have likely seen it".

On the next day, the media circus was fully installed. The first reports are on Sky News first thing in the morning, even before portuguese press takes hold of the story. Journalists and locals dispute the information. Robert Murat, the son of an english mother and a portuguese father, with little luck in business, does not waste the opportunity. He moves from failed businessman into the role of a translator for the press and the police. Some british journalists, after sucking him to the bones, start suspecting his availability.

The Murat contradiction

Contrarily to the GNR elements and the Ocean Club's staff, who participated in the searches on the night before and assure they did not see Murat around, Gerry and some of his friends guarantee that he was there. And thus he becomes an arguido.

Gerry and Kate's friends, who are interrogated tightly by the PJ over almost a month, refuse to clarify this contradiction, when asked by Sol. "We have a pact. This is our matter only. It is nobody else's business", says David Payne, another element with the group. Minutes after we tried to contact Kate, Gerry, in a fury, calls the Sol journalist: "What do you think you are doing? Do you think you're better than the portuguese police? I'm going to forward your contact to PJ and you will have to explain yourselves".

-------

PJ says `everybody is a suspect'

The director of the Policia Judiciaria in Faro, Guilhermino da Encarnacao, confirmed with Sol that "we do not discard the possibility to have the family and friends as suspects". This is always done "without neglecting other clues. Everybody who was at the resort at the time are suspects".

July 11th

this on Sol website now:

http://sol.sapo.pt/PaginaInicial/Sociedade/Interior.aspx?content_id=44677

Murat and 3 McCann friends confronted

Policia Judiciaria is going to confront the three elements of the group that was spending holidays with Madeleine�s parents in Praia da Luz, with the statement of the person who is until now the only arguido in the process of the disappearance of the english child

(�)

The four persons who are being inquired are going to be submitted to a confrontation, in order to clarify the truth about what happened on the night of the kidnapping, given the fact that the statements are contradictory.

Among the english that were spending their vacation with Madeleine�s parents at the Ocean Club and are going to be heard today, are the couple Russell O�Brien and Jane Tanner.

We are reminded that a SOL investigation concluded that Russell was the group�s element who was absent for the greatest amount of time, during the dinner that was held on the night Madeleine McCann disappeared.

The testimony of a resort employee confirms that a few days earlier, it was also Russell O�Brien who had been absent during the group�s dinner.

Jane Tanner is one of the key witnesses of the process, given the fact that she claims to have seen a man carrying a child, during one of her trips to the apartments to check on the children.

The english woman states she saw a man aged 35-40, with dark hair, wearing beige trousers, a dark jacket and classic black shoes, carrying a girl, who was wearing a pyjama and was barefoot.

Yet, this portrait does not fully coincide with Murat, given the fact that he never wore his hair long at the neck, which is how Jane describes the man she saw.

Although Jane describes the individual with good detail, Jeremy Wilkins � another witness who was on the street at the exact moment when Jane says she saw the suspect � guaranteed to SOL that he saw neither Jane nor any suspect, adding that if this had happened, it would have been �practically impossible� not noticing the ocurrence.

Another aspect that the police will want to clarify is whether Robert Murat was at the Ocean Club on the night Maddie vanished.

The McCann�s friends confirm they saw the arguido at the resort in Praia da Luz, but staff and GNR elements deny this version.

July - date to be confirmed

author: Margarida Davim 
translated by: Astro

At the entrance of Ocean�s Club in Praia da Luz, the journalists who participated in the press conference that was held by Madeleine�s parents for the portuguese media, encountered a plastic box to collect donations. A small text, signed by Kate and Gerry McCann, invites everyone who enters the resort to contribute. This gesture was not appreciated by the members of staff, who claim that the resort �is full of collection boxes�.

A fund for Maddie

This box is just one of many ways that Maddie�s parents found to collect money for the �Leaving no Stone Unturned� fund � which counts with almost 900 thousand pounds already (one million three hundred thousand euros).

Justine McGuinness, the McCann�s new public relations, guarantees that the collected money �is being managed by a group of independent persons�, and subject to �very rigorous rules that are imposed by british law to all charities�. Still, McGuinness refuses to explain who are the �highly qualified lawyers and managers� that are managing the fund, just highlighting they are not remunerated, and offered as volunteers.

On the findmadeleine.com site there is an online store, where Gerry and Kate sell yellow rubber bracelets and textile bands, to help finance the cause. Callum McRae, the author of the site, says it was the couple�s idea. Speaking to SOL, McRae explains that the child�s aunt, Philomena McCann, asked him to create the internet page, just two days after the girl went missing. �She knew exactly what she wanted�, says Callum McRae, who created the contents in just one day.

The McCann�s internet page also publicizes several fundraising events, all taking place in the UK, and some planned over 60 days ahead.

To SOL, McRae, who was a student of Madeleine�s aunt in highschool, did not want to specify whether his work on the site is paid by the fund or not: �I�m not authorized to speak about that�. According to the site, the fund�s purpose is to �support Madeleine�s family financially� and to make sure she is found, and her kidnappers brought to trial. After reaching these targets, the collected money shall be used to help solving �similar cases in the UK, in Portugal and elsewhere�.

Twins at the creche

This week, Kate and Gerry moved into a villa outside the Ocean Club, but are still visiting the resort. �They come here every day to drop the twins at the creche�, a member of staff reports.

Kate and Gerry, who are now staying at a villa with a pool, never had to pay for their stay at the resort. �They were not even handed a bill�, the same employee of the Ocean Club says, noting the couple�s detached and somewhat �arrogant� attitude.

Reactions to SOL

Last edition�s article on the McCann case (A pact of silence), has livened the discussion in the UK. Fully translated into english, it has prompted approximately 20 pages of reactions in the forum of the Daily Mirror. Among the comments, there is criticism of the alleged censorship that this work was subject to in the forums of other british media.

13th July 2007

Article translated and posted by Astro:

I decided it deserves its own thread - hope you don't mind Astro!!!

in: SOL on July 13, 2007

an article by Gra�a Rosendo and Felicia Cabrita, with Margarida Davim 
translated by: astro

No clues against Murat

PJ suspected a connection between Robert Murat and one of the McCann�s friends. Apart from that, there are few clues: at the arguido�s home, all they found was a ******** and an article about Casanova

Policia Judiciaria (PJ) returned this week to the investigation line that had been established on the days right after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from Praia da Luz, and that was focused only on two targets: the group of nine english people that were on holidays in the Ocean Club, which included the little girl�s parents, and Robert Murat, the only arguido in this inquiry. The various leads that were followed in other countries seem to be fully dismissed.

On Tuesday, PJ in Portimao interrogated Murat tightly for six hours. On the following day, they confronted him with three friends of the McCann couple. According to what SOL could establish, none of them was confronted with the existence of new information. PJ centered their inquiries on the contradictions that were spotted in the various interrogations they were subject to during this investigation � namely the fact that, among several dozens of witnesses, only the couple�s friends and one female employee of the Ocean Club saw Murat in the vicinity of the McCann�s apartment on the night that Maddie disappeared.

Not even GNR agents, the first authority that arrived on location, remember his presence that night, and guaranteed they only saw him on the next morning.

Judiciaria keeps Robert Murat as a main suspect anyway, and has been exploring the possibility of connections between him and Russell O�Brien, one of the members of the group of nine. But the only connection seems to be the fact that Murat went to Exeter, in England, where a sister of his lives, and where also Russell and Jane live, ten days before the child vanished.

This friend of the McCann�s, who returned to Portimao to be confronted with Murat, is one of the three elements of the group of nine who says he saw Murat at the place where the case happened.

******** and Casanova

Robert Murat, the son of a british mother and a portuguese father, was in the place where everything happened, on the morning after the disappearance, and immediately became a translator for the press, the GNR and the PJ.

It is immediately perceived how easily he moves around, entering the McCann�s apartment and the tourist club several times. He therefore watches the authorities� diligences and listens to some of the depositions that are taken on those first days. But his friends say he likes being noticed. He boasts about having done translations for the british police in Norfolk, and that he knows about the actions of paedophiles in the Algarve.

But in just two days, Murat becomes a suspect. British press remembers a case that happened in London, when the author of a crime was always present during the investigations, and started raising doubts. The police was alerted, and without him even noticing, started inquiring about his personal life, preferring to keep him close, rather than excluding him from the investigation.

But Murat also noticed what was being said about him. And he stated informally, as a sort of alibi, that on the night of the events he had been with his girlfriend � as some friends have told SOL.

A week later, Murat was constituted an arguido. On the first time his deposition was taken, he presented a different version of what he had done on that night: he had not been with his girlfriend, but at home with his mother, having dinner.

This is just one of the contradictions with which Murat was confronted at PJ on Tuesday. Apart from that, the police have little to point against him, except for the fact that he owns a car � which would give him more mobility than anyone in the group of nine had, to drive away from the crime scene with the child, according to a police source.

The searches that were done in his house produced a ******** and an article from �Telegraph Review� with the title �Lock up your daughters�. It�s an article about a literary work on Casanova, which poses the possibility that the famous charmer was a paedophile. It was also discovered that Murat and his girlfriend used to visit adult porn sites.

�A big confusion�

Jennifer Murat, the mother, states she had dinner with Robert at home that evening. The telephone records between 8 p.m. and midnight prove just that, according to sources close to Murat: �There are phone calls both from phones and cell phones that prove that, at the time he was seen, he was actually at home�.

Barend Weijdon, a dutchman who established himself in Praia da Luz as a real-estate manager 10 years ago, took notice of the child�s disappearance around 10 p.m., through a friend. He was a few metres from the location, entered the Ocean Club and participated in the searches. He was there before the authorities arrived, he guarantees to SOL. �I know Robert very well, and if he had been there that night, I, just like many other friends of ours ho were there, would have certainly noticed him�. And he adds: �I arrived there just after 10 p.m. and stayed until 3 a.m. I didn�t see him. But I remember sseing Maddie�s father and a friend, talking to GNR�.

Also June Wright and her husband, who own a bar in Praia da Luz, upon hearing the news, joined the crowd and participated in the searches that night. They have known Murat for many years, and they are sure that they would have noticed his presence, if he had been there.

�It was full of people that we didn�t know�, June told SOL. �It was a big confusion�, she adds. A confusion that, according to an employee of the hotel, could have permitted about anything.

The versions of the friends

The three friends of the McCanns who have returned to Portimao state the contrary. Fiona Payne and Rachel Mumpilly assure they saw Robert Murat at the Ocean Club around 11.45 p.m., while Russell O�Brien says he saw him around 1 a.m. These guarantees were given after Murat was constituted an arguido. Because before, when they were confronted with the possibility that they might have seen anything suspicious on the night of the disappearance, they said nothing.

�He even told me he had a daughter of the same age as Madeleine�, Russell said, as he spoke to SOL about this case 2 weeks ago. And Fiona Payne said at that time she told police that �he seemed to be peeking into the apartment� on that night.

This was the highest point of the confrontation that PJ held this week, and which put the McCann�s friends in front of Robert Murat. But the contradictions that led the PJ to suspect the group of nine british people right from the start, are still to be clarified.

We remember it was 10 p.m. when Kate decided to check on her children in the apartment. And this is the only moment that gathers consensus in the various versions the group delivered during the investigations. Madeleine had disappeared from her room, and the twins remained sound asleep.

In seconds, the resort was in turmoil. The four men in the group, and the club�s staff checked out every corner. GNR arrives over an hour later, and PJ arrives over 2 hours later. The first interrogations start: Where were the parents when the child disappeared? Gerry replies the nine were eating at the Tapas restaurant and took turns in checking the children were ok, at regular intervals.

He starts by saying he first checked the children at 9.05. When he entered the apartment, he just thought it was starnge that the bedroom door was partly open. But he checked the window, which was closed, just like the shutters, and relaxed.

His friend Jane Tanner, Russell�s wife, says that ten minutes after he returned to the table, it was her turn to check the rooms. She crossed ways with a dark haired man who was walking in the opposite direction carrying a child, but she didn�t find it strange. But she memorized the individual from head to toes, so she could later describe him in great detail.

A few minutes later, it�s time for Matthew, the husband of Rachel, to leave Tapas. He entered the room and saw the McCann children asleep. He noticed nothing out of the ordinary. 
When, at 10 p.m., the mother notices her daughter is missing, the window is wide open and the shutters are up. To GNR, this is an unlikely scenario. One of the military guaranteed to SOL two weeks ago: �This is a silent area, where there are practically no cars passing by. Those shutters were difficult to lift from the outside, and they would have made a lot of noise. It would have been so much easier to enter the door, but there were no signs of a break-in�.

The story of the group�s last dinner also includes some deviations. Some guarantee that someone left the table every half hour to check on the children. Others reduce this time to half of it. Some say the checking was done through the windows. Others state that the adults entered each other�s apartments.

One of the employees that was serving that evening does not remember that much movement: �I just remember a tall, grey-haired man to get up from the table�. This was Russell, who had not attended dinner two days earlier, either. An aerobics teacher from the resort entertains dinner guests at the Tapas with a Quiz. At 9.30 p.m., when the game is over, Gerry invites her to their table, where she stays for half an hour. During that time, she told friends, nobody left the table, but there was a vacant seat.

Jeremy contradicts

Gerry alters his version several times, but he maintains that the door to the children�s room was open. Matthew later denies his own statement of that night: He says that the bedroom door was open and there was more light, as if the shutters had been raised. The theory that there was already someone inside the apartment starts to take shape. And it reinforced Jane�s story.

But there is a witness at the right time, on the wrong location. Jeremy Wilkins, who had become accquainted with Maddie�s father during the vacations and played tennis with him, was walking his eight months old son around. He met

Gerry, who had left the apartment through the back door, and exchanged a brief conversation with him. At that time, according to the first statements, Jane was leaving Tapas, heading for the apartments� main entrance, and meets them both. Jeremy contradicts: �It was a rather narrow street and I don�t think anyone could pass there without me noticing�.

When the british woman reaches the top of the street, she sees an individual carrying a child. In spite of the dim lighting, and the situation not raising any suspicions for her, she describes the beige trousers, the dark thick jacket and the black classic style shoes in great detail. Jeremy insists: �If that had happened, I would probably have seen it�.

Jane did not come to Portugal to participate in this new round of depositions. And the reconstitution of the events on that night has yet to be made. Therefore, we do not know yet whether the man that the british woman claims to have seen carrying a child on that night, is Robert Murat or not.

Saturday 4th August - Breaking News -- Kind translation by : Astro

in Sol on August 4, 2007:

a report by Felicia Cabrita with Margarida Davim 
translation by astro

Looking for Maddie�s body

The investigations have returned to their initial course. Portuguese and british police search for the body of the child in the surroundings of Praia da Luz

�There are strong signs� that Madeleine, the english child that disappeared from Praia da Luz almost one hundred days ago, �is dead�, police sources have told Sol.

The 180� turnaround that the investigation by the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) from Portimao seems to have done in the past few days, even led the Attorney General, Pinto Monteiro, to postpone the making of an interview that had been requested by british media chain BBC � an interview that would be focusing on the fact that, so long after Maddie�s disapperance, the authorities still remain without real clues concerning her whereabouts.

Although an official source from the PGR justified the postponing of the interview with �agenda issues�, the moves by the PJ and some elements from the british police during these last days � accompanied by two dogs, in Praia da Luz � seem to indicate that the investigation is now centered on the McCann family and their group of friends.

Sol could find out that the english dogs are trained for different tasks. One, to detect human remains originating from dead flesh, and the other one to detect human blood or fluids. A specialist that was contacted by Sol explains that the technique of these animals rests on scientific bases, and that while �one of the dogs can distinguish between natural death or death by accident that does not involve bloodshed, the other one can diagnose whether someone died a violent death, with bloodshed or other spilled fluids�.

Tuesday night, a black and white cocker spaniel that is trained to detect death, spent several hours in the apartment that the McCann family occupied in the Ocean Club resort, and from where Maddie disappeared on May 3. According to sources within the investigation, the dog marked the death of the child inside the apartment.

On the dogs� trail

The english dogs do not contradict the clues that were detected by the sniffer dog that GNR sent to the location, on the day following the english girl�s disappearance. It�s an animal that only follows odours, and that �detected the movement of the child from the room to another point inside the apartment�, according to a source with the Guarda.

The same source said that �based on that signal, it was not possible to conclude whether the child was alive or dead � because a sniffer dog will smell both the living and the dead�.

Yet, outside the house, both through the windows that faced the Tapas restaurant � where the McCanns had dinner with their seven friends � and through the main door, �the dog lost the trail, as if the child had exited, for example, rolled up in a blanket�, that source said.

A team from Sol, on the terrain for the last two weeks, could observe the work of the cocker spaniel from the british police, performing several diligences along the water in Praia da Luz and in a nearby valley.

The animal�s path, on Wednesday night, seemed to test the deposition from several witnesses that were heard by the PJ in late May � namely an irish family that have been living in Luz, and who, on the day that Maddie vanished, reportedly crossed ways with a man that carried a child that seemed to be asleep.

According to their deposition to PJ, Martin Smith, his wife and his children, after leaving the Kelly bar, which is located approximately 400 metres from the Ocean Club, around 9.50 / 10.00 p.m., saw an individual described as caucasian, measuring 1.70 � 1.75 m, walking towards the beach.

The irish man told Sol that he knew Robert Murat (the only arguido in the process) visually for years � and also remembered seeing the anglo-portuguese man in a bar that evening, �already a bit intoxicated�. Therefore, the irish dismissed the possibility that the person he saw carrying a child could be Murat: �If it was him, I guarantee to you that I would have recognized him�.

Concerning the clothes the man he saw on that night was wearing, Smith only refers the �beige trousers�, given the fact that his upper body was hidden by the child�s body, which was not covered. It is curious that one of the elements that formed the group of Maddie�s parents� friends, guaranteed to PJ several days before Smith was heard, that - at a moment when she left the table to check on the group�s children - she had crossed ways with a man that was wearing trousers that fit the description that was also made by the irish man.

That individual was also carrying a sleeping child. And the witness, who even managed to see what pyjamas the child was wearing, just �thought it was strange that the child was barefoot and uncovered�. This witness said it would be 9.15 p.m.

Direct access to the PM

According to the course the PJ from Portimao is now conducting the investigation, and considering the trail that the british police�s cocker spaniel tracked along the sea shore, the individual would have descended to Praia da Luz, where he could have disposed of Maddie�s body. Sol knows that the english team contacted Joao Alveirinho Dias, a professor at the University of Algarve and a specialist in oceanography, in order to collect information about the sea�s dynamics and the beach area where everything may have happened. The investigator, who was not briefed about the context of the police inquiries, told Sol that he was consulted on �the sand movements, where they come from and where they go to�.

The police investigation has therefore, and according to our sources, returned to its initial course, and it becomes increasingly clear, as Sol had reported previously, that there is no proof against Murat.

Yet, the british media continue to point a finger at the anglo-portuguese man, although the criminal investigation has returned to clues that relate to the group of friends of Madeleine�s parents.

A journalist with the Daily Express � who has repeatedly contacted Sol searching for new information on this case � recognized this week that it is �difficult for an english newspaper to adopt a critical tone concerning Madeleine�s parents�.

The Daily Express cited, in one of its last reports, the news that have been published by Sol, describing them as a �hate campaign� against the McCanns. The same journalist ended up confessing that �it�s the only way we can transmit your data�.

Sol knows that Gerry McCann has regular contact with Gordon Brown, the british Prime Minister. Clarence Mitchell � who was the first spokesman for the McCanns and is now in the press cabinet at Nr. 10, Downing Street � confirms those contacts. �I know there is a communication line between Gerry and Gordon Brown. I know they talk. But I don�t know what they talk about, because those are informal conversations�, he clarified, further adding: �The Madeleine case is treated whenever there are bilateral meetings between Portugal and the United Kingdom. Gordon Brown is sensitive to the case and wants it solved quickly�.

4th August - Sol discusses Madeleine Fund (not a charity) private company. Kind translation by astro

in Sol on August 4, 2007:

by Margarida Davim 
translation by astro

Fund is not charity

The �Leaving No Stone Unturned� fund can already count on almost one million pounds in donations � approximately one million and four hundred thousand euros � but is not recognized by the Charity Commission, the entity that regulates all beneficient activities in the UK. �In order to be considered a charity, the fund would have to be constituted for the benefit of the public, and not to benefit one individual or a specific case�, a source from the comission explained to Sol.

According to the same source, the Charity Commission decided not to accept the request that was made by Madeleine�s parents to register the fund, after analysing the purpose of the collection of donations: �The McCanns failed to prove that they are collecting money to help other cases that are similar to Madeleine�s�.

The information that was collected with the english authorities contradicts the statements made by the McCanns� public relations to Sol, in our edition of July 7. Then, Justine McGuinness assured that the money that is received by Maddie�s parents �is subject to very strict rules, that are imposed by british law on any charity fund�. At that time, the spokesperson for Kate and Gerry even explained that the decision to establish a fund was born from the need to �ensure that everything is done in a transparent way�.

Confronted with this inconsistency, Justine McGuiness corrects her initial statement: �The fund is not considered a charity, but it aims to comply with the high standards that are demanded by the Charity Commission�.

McGuinness does not explain why she did not clarify this from the beginning, but she guarantees that her role in the campaign to find Madeleine is to �be Gerry and Kate�s spokesperson, and not the Fund�s�. Still, she assures that all donations �are subject to strict british rules that regulate the activities of corporations without lucrative purposes�.

According to a source from the Charity Commission, this juridical status means that the money that is collected by the fund �is not exempt of taxes in the United Kingdom�.

Justine McGuinness does not comment, and directs any further explanation to the presentation text that can be read on the findmadeleine.com site, where it�s written that the fund�s managers are committed to guarantee the finantial and juridical scrutiny of the fund.

Although Sol insisted, it was not possible to reach anyone responsible with �Leaving No Stone Unturned� � including John McCann, Gerry�s brother, and Brian Kennedy, Kate�s uncle.

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