Phone sleuths in
Algarve
PHONE experts who nailed Soham killer Ian Huntley are helping in the hunt for
Madeleine McCann, it emerged last night.
Technicians who gathered the mobile data which proved that murdered Holly Wells
and Jessica Chapman were at Huntley's house are in the
Algarve
advising Portuguese police.
Abducted Madeleine, four, does not have a phone but experts are analysing the
records of suspect Robert Murat, 33.
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He told police that on the night Madeleine vanished he had dinner with his
mother Jenny in the villa they share 150 yards from the McCanns' holiday
apartment in Praia da Luz.
The experts can check his alibi and account of his movements in the days that
followed by tracking silent signals from his handset to phone masts.
In Soham, such signals pinpointed Jessica's phone to within yards of Huntley's
home, and those from his handset proved he had lied about where he went after
the 10-year-olds vanished.
Murat and Russian Sergey Malinka were in phone contact on the night Madeleine
went missing but denied speaking. Both deny any wrongdoing.
Police have also found references in Murat's emails to a British sailor living on
a yacht in nearby
Lagos
marina.
Detectives fear Madeleine may have been taken out of
Portugal by boat. Several yachts
have been searched and three Brits and a foreigner quizzed.
Tomorrow, Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann, both 38, will meet the
Pope in the
Vatican.
Their family said: "We've confirmation Gerry and Kate will attend the
general audience with the Holy Father and will be greeted at the end."
Kate and Gerry, of Rothley, Leics, also plan visits to
Spain,
Germany
and
Holland, and could go to
Morocco, where
a girl who looked like Madeleine was seen. Topshop's Sir Philip Green has
offered the use of his private jet. |
