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Original Source:
MAIL:
23 AUGUST 2007 |
| Last updated at 12:18pm on 23rd August 2007 |
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Police are investigating a possible sighting of Madeleine McCann being bundled
into a car in Spain.
Two witnesses told detectives they are "certain" they saw the missing
four-year-old with a man acting strangely at a petrol station on Tuesday
afternoon.
Earlier this week Kate and Gerry McCann said they believe their daughter could
be alive and being held in Spain.
The two women witnesses told police they saw a well-built man shoving a little
girl into a dark green Citroen ZX hatchback by the car wash at a service
station near Cartagena,
on the south east coast.
The man pushed her down onto the car seat when he realised he was being
watched, they said.
One of the witnesses told officers: "The man was holding the girl by the
hand, but when he saw us watching him, he picked her up by her head, pushed her
into the seat to hide her, and sped off as fast as he could in the car."
The man was described as 5ft 9in tall man with chestnut coloured hair and dark
brown eyes, wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and "pirate-style"
trousers.
The two Spanish women reported the incident at the Civil Guard headquarters in Cartagena at 7.45pm on
Tuesday.
And detectives have twice visited the Shell gas station on the N332.
All officers in the area have been given a description of the possible abductor
and the car and have stepped up their patrols, local media reported.
A spokesman for the Spanish government's office in the province
of Murcia said today/yesterday (THURS):
"Two Spanish women presented themselves at the Civil Guard office in Cartagena to say they
were certain they had seen Madeleine in a car at a service station.
"They said she was forced into the car by a man.
"The Civil Guard, National Police and local police are all investigating
the incident which we are taking seriously.
"Of course we are still all hoping Madeleine is found alive and
safe."
After receiving the call police interviewed staff at the service station.
Petrol-pump attendant Francisco Cervantes told police he had also seen the
green Citroen ZX at the car wash.
He told a local newspaper: "I was waiting on the forecourt by the petrol
pumps and I saw a green Citroen ZX which was very dirty and which headed
straight for the car wash.
"I remember perfectly that the car was being driven by a person with curly
hair. "The police asked me if the driver was a man or a woman, but I
couldn't see well enough to be able to tell.
"They also asked me if I had served them at the petrol pump, but I hadn't,
and neither did my colleagues.
"I can't say if they drove off at speed, as you can't see the exit to the
highway from the petrol pumps."
Staff at the service station today said they have no idea who the two witnesses
are.
A woman cashier, who asked not to be named, said: "The police have been
around twice, once on Tuesday afternoon and once on Wednesday afternoon.
"We have no idea who the witnesses are. Certainly nobody came to us and
told us they had seen Madeleine."
Spanish police refused to comment on the potential sighting.
Madeleine's parents Gerry and Kate, from Rothley, Leicestershire, this week
said they believe the four-year-old may have been smuggled out of Portugal into Spain.
Gerry McCann, 39, said: "We have always been interested in Spain because of its proximity to Portugal.
"If someone had a car, it's clear they could have crossed into Spain.
There is no border control and the frontier was not closed off on the night
Madeleine disappeared.
"The possibility that Madeleine is alive and in Spain is very real.
"The border between the two countries is very big." Portuguese border
police were not informed that Madeleine had gone missing until the morning of
May 4 - the day after she vanished from the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.
And members of the country's Borders and Aliens Service were only given a
photograph of the toddler 12 hours after she disappeared.
The lapse would have given an abductor time to get across the border to Spain unchecked
long before a lock-down was ordered by police.
Motorists routinely cross the border between Spain
and Portugal
without being stopped.
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