As the Met’s Operation Grange flies back to the Algarve to re-interview 11 people connected to the Madeleine inquiry, a website has thrown a spanner in the works by revealing everybody’s identity.
The reason given by the Blacksmith Bureau is that “since May 4 2007” “from the BBC down to the Daily Star” the “joint rule” has always been that mainstream media decides “which names” and “which information is to be released”.
The no-holds-barred blogsite claims it “published the list on behalf of the public who are paying ten million for the (Operation Grange) investigation” into what really happened to Madeleine McCann.
But the bottom-line is that by publishing the list people on it who are preparing to travel to Faro this week to face yet another grilling by police officers feel their privacy has been invaded.
“The fact that the Met cannot stop leaks like this from happening says a great deal about this investigation”, one of the 11 told the Resident.
“I cannot really comment. One day I would love to break my silence”, the Luz businesswoman added. “But for now, we will just have to play our part. If the police want to ask us questions all over again, we will just have to go along with them”.
The British woman who agreed she and her husband were “thoroughly fed up” with the whole “awful mystery”, added that she feared the Madeleine inquiry “might never get to the truth”.
It’s the understatement perhaps of the last seven years – and undoubtedly fuels the fire that powers websites like the Blacksmith Bureau.
As the bureau pointed out: “We don’t have inside information on any of the eleven suspects/witnesses or the future course of the investigation”. Yet it adds that Grange’s return to the Algarve this week – with the new broom from Homicide and Major Crime Command (see: https://www.portugalresident.com/madeleine-redwood-moves-over-for-%E2%80%9Cpainted%E2%80%9D-lady) – coincides with the next round of the libel trial instigated by Madeleine’s parents against former PJ detective Gonçalo Amaral. It also precedes the reopening in nine days time of the inquest into the death of British grandmother Brenda Leyland, ‘outed’ for her so-called “trolling” of the McCann parents on the Internet.
As this week’s “witnesses” face another round in the media spotlight, Grange detectives are expected to remain in Portugal until Friday.
According to British and Portuguese press, seven of the witnesses are considered of “high level interest” and could be constituted as defendants during their questioning.
Again according to mainstream media, among the seven are Robert Murat – the first defendant named in the original Madeleine investigation, long-since released from suspicion by the PJ and who eventually received over £600,000 in damages for unfounded allegations made against him in the press; Murat’s wife, Michaela, and another British man – again long ago released from any suspicion – and originally identified as a person of interest by a 12-year-old.
Madeleine: Witness identities revealed as met return to Algarve
