By JAMES MURRAY
PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sun, Jun 29, 2014
The disgraced detective made the bombshell claim in a Portuguese television documentary that openly mocked Scotland Yard’s new investigation. When asked if people will ever learn what really happened, Mr Amaral responded: “Yes, we will, when MI5 opens the case files, we will find out.
“Don’t forget that the British secret services followed the case right from the beginning. I don’t know if that information will be made available but if it’s like the United States, it takes years to have access to confidential information.”
Mr Amaral, 56, was the officer who co-ordinated the Portuguese police investigation from May 3, 2007, when three-year-old Madeleine vanished from her family’s holiday apartment at Praia da Luz on the Algarve.
After criticising British police he was kicked off the case four months later.
In his latest interview he claims that after two British police dogs were used to searched the McCann’s apartment at the Ocean Club, his team had to take the British person responsible for the operation to Faro Airport.
Amaral, now retired and working as a crime writer, went on: “He’s at the airport waiting for a plane to return to England and he receives a phone call. Then he explains to our colleague that a member of MI5 was at the airport, waiting to talk with him about the result of the investigation.
“Someone has the information, so make the information available.”
There has been suspicion in the senior ranks of Portugal’s police that US and/or British intelligence chiefs have satellite images of the area that could be helpful but have never passed them on.
The latest Scotland Yard squad is apparently working on the theory that Madeleine was abducted by burglars who were also involved in drug trafficking. Mr Amaral said the same theory was put forward by a Yard detective seconded to his team seven years ago.
“It was discussed and completely set aside because it made no sense,” he said. “Nobody has proved the house was broken into, that there was a theft, there are no traces of a break-in. No money, cameras or anything else was taken.”
He said he expects the latest Yard inquiry to wind down soon, without a breakthrough, adding: “They are getting to the point of saying that she is dead.
“They will reach the point of saying that the cadaver can’t be found and the case can’t be solved.”
Mr Amaral will face Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, at a civil court in Lisbon on July 8.
The couple, who cling to the hope their daughter might be alive, are suing him for £1million for libel over his claim that Madeleine died in the apartment, made in his book The Truth Of The Lie.
No comments:
Post a Comment