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Original Source:
DAILY MAIL: 31 JULY 2007 |
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31st
July 2007 |
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A team of Cracker-style police has been drafted in to
help find Madeleine McCann.
The group, including specialist criminal profilers from the UK, flew to
Portugal yesterday to review evidence gathered during the three month
investigation into who could have taken the missing four-year-old.
The team, likened to the TV character Cracker, are now working to construct a
psychological profile of the kidnapper to help the local police.
They are also experts in predicting the behaviour of paedophiles.
All leave has been cancelled for the Portuguese detectives investigating the
case, who refused to confirm the identities of the British criminologists.
A Portuguese police source said: "We have reached a phase of the investigation
where we are now trying to evaluate everything."
Madeleine was snatched from her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve resort
of Praia da Luz on May 3.
Her parents were dining with their friends at a tapas restaurant 50 yards away.
Yesterday, friends of Madeleine's parents were forced to issue a denial over
the allegations linking them to the key suspect.
According to Portuguese newspaper Sol, detectives are investigating a possible
link between chief suspect Robert Murat and two friends of the McCann family
who are key witnesses in the case.
The Sol report said Murat, 33, has been asked by detectives if he knew one
member of the group – hospital consultant Russell O'Brien, 36.
It claimed police spoke to Dr O'Brien after it was discovered the pair were
both in Exeter
days before Madeleine was kidnapped.
Murat spent 10 days in there, arriving back in the Algarve on May 1 - 48 hours before
Madeleine was snatched.
Dr O'Brien and his partner Jane Tanner, also 36, moved to a rented home in the
city four weeks earlier, it was reported today.
Find Madeleine campaign manager Justine McGuinness
denied that either O'Brien or Tanner met with Murat prior to the disappearance
of Madeleine.
"It is absolutely not the case that anyone in the party with the McCanns
had ever met Robert Murat before they went on holiday."
Miss Tanner was the key witness who saw a man rushing away from the Ocean Club
resort carrying a child wrapped in a blanket.
Dr O'Brien told police he saw Murat near the McCann's holiday apartment that
night.
He was one of three friends of the couple who confronted Murat two weeks ago in
a showdown set up by police.
Dr O'Brien, Fiona Payne and Rachael Oldfield were allowed to challenge Murat's
version of events.
Murat insists he met Dr O'Brien only after Madeleine's abduction, when offering
his services to family and police. |
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