As the Met’s Operation Grange flew back to the Algarve to re-interview 11 people connected to the Madeleine inquiry, a website threw a spanner in the works by revealing everybody’s identity.
The reason given by the Blacksmith Bureau was 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 blog site claims it “published the list on behalf of the public who are paying ten million pounds for the (Operation Grange) investigation” which, thus far, seems only to be re-interviewing people long ago discounted from the original PJ inquiry.
Nonetheless, by publishing the list, people on it preparing to travel to Faro for yet another police grilling felt their privacy had 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 at the weekend.
“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 a frustration felt by almost all the others, including local character “Quim Zé” Marques who actually lashed out at TV cameras after he had endured a six-hour interrogation on Tuesday.
“Quim Zé” rose to notoriety in the early days of the inquiry after threatening newsmen with a gun and because he has a prison record for the rape of a British tourist in 1996.
But PJ police accepted that he has a cast-iron alibi for the night Madeleine was reported to have gone missing and, as the man himself has always affirmed, “the whole thing is nonsense”.
It is also a process that marked the handover of the Met’s investigation to Grange’s “new broom” – former head of Homicide and Major Crime Command Nicola Wall.
As the Resident reported last week on our website (portugalresident.com), Wall comes with a sterling record in cracking multiple cases.
Her appointment to the long-running investigation comes in the same week that the libel trial instigated by Madeleine’s parents against former PJ detective Gonçalo Amaral reconvened in Lisbon (see panel). It also precedes the reopening next week of the inquest into the death of British grandmother Brenda Leyland, ‘outed’ for her so-called “trolling” of the McCann parents on the internet.
According to mainstream media, among the people to be seen are Robert Murat – the first defendant named in the original investigation, long-since released from suspicion by the PJ – his 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.
As Met detectives embarked on the busy week, newspapers in Portugal made much of the fact that for the first time the Madeleine investigation is in the hands of five women, four Portuguese and one Brit (incoming Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Wall).
The Portuguese women in the frame are Attorney General Joana Marques Vidal, Portimão public prosecutor Inês Sequeira, Portimão PJ chief Ana Paula Rito and Helena Monteiro, the Porto PJ detective in charge of the Madeleine investigation in Portugal.
The only man left in a position of authority in the inquiry is Faro PJ chief Luís Mota Carmo.
McCann defamation
Final arguments in the €1 million case for defamation brought five years ago by the parents of Madeleine McCann against former PJ policeman Gonçalo Amaral were being heard in court in Lisbon on Wednesday morning. The judge’s decision on the case is expected to come in February. Amaral told newspapers this week that throughout the trial the McCanns have “tried to pass off the idea that what is being judged is their innocence”.
By NATASHA DONN
news@algarveresident.com
Madeleine: witness identities “revealed” as Met police return to Algarve
