The hunt for closure in the almost 10 year mystery of ‘what happened to Madeleine McCann’ is focusing once again on Luz Ocean Club -- the complex from which she went missing almost 10 years ago.
The news, repeated by various UK tabloids this morning, follows a purported ‘last ditch’ £85,000 (€96,000) injection into the long-running British police probe - extending the already multi-millionaire funding for another six months.
It also comes as the parents of missing Madeleine announced they too will be ‘ploughing €500,000’ into the “desperate search” for their missing daughter.
According to today’s news, the latest ‘hot lead’ is a former Portuguese worker at the now world-famous family holiday resort.
Claiming to be in touch with “an insider”, the Daily Mail says police believe this worker “kept secrets from them during the initial investigation”.
“There is no suggestion he stole Maddie, but he may know the people involved”, adds the tabloid - stressing yet again the angle of a burglary that “went wrong”.
A “Portuguese police source” is reported to have told the Daily Mirror: “This Portuguese man used to work at the club resort, he speaks a bit of English” - which, in the grand scheme of things, means he could be just about anybody.
In Portugal, the revelations have been greeted with a hefty dose of salt. Criminal investigator, writer and broadcaster Moita Flores - formerly attached to the country’s Judicial Police - and a regular commentator on the ‘unspoken angles’ of the case, has given an exclusive interview to Flash! news website (part of the Cofina group that owns Correio da Manhã) suggesting: “This is all just another attempt to clear the real people responsible for this disaster.
“Why this child, when there are so many others who have disappeared”, he queries.
“The secret is in that group of people (holidaying with the McCann couple) and the parents, who are influential people within the British government”, he said.
For now, the official British version of this seemingly endless mystery is that an international search is underway to try and locate this new ‘key witness’. The latest cash injection from the British government is to facilitate that search, the papers claim, quoting policing minister Brandon Lewis “who signed off the payment, saying: ‘I am pleased to be able to support the British police who are trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Madeleine McCann and give some kind of closure and justice to her family”.
Little has been made of the fact that the detective in charge of the much-reduced police investigation for the last two-plus years is formerly from the Met’s homicide division (click here).
As Moita Flores told Flash! he has "no doubts" that the case "involves a murder".
"It was impossible to get through a window with a child", he said - referring to the official version of the abduction theory - adding that "Maddie died in that apartment".
"With the €96,000 awarded by the British government, they should be doing a reconstruction in Praia da Luz", he told Flash!. "It is the only way to resolve the case".
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
PORTUGAL PRESS
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