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Scotland Yard officers currently
undertaking an 'investigative review' of
the Madeleine McCann case could be about
to arrive in Portugal to 'interview
witnesses and suspects, search
properties and even make arrests,'
reports the Daily Mirror, 20 July 2013.
They 'could arrive in Portugal within
days', we are told. Indeed, they could.
In fact, they 'could' be about to do any
one of a number of things but does the
British press really know what?
In October 2011, the Metropolitan Police
Service stated the following in response
to a Freedom of Information request:
'High profile reviews, such as this
one, are highly emotive and the manner
in which they are conducted are usually
kept in strict secrecy so that the
tactics and lines of enquiry that are
followed do not become public knowledge
thereby rendering them useless.'
Yet, on 26 May 2013, the Daily Mirror
reported the following, in connection
with Urs Hans Von Aesch, who abducted
and murdered 5 year old Ylenia Lenhard,
in Switzerland, on 31 July 2007:
'Officers from Scotland Yard's Operation
Grange, who are investigating
Madeleine's disappearance, say von Aesch
is one of 20 "persons of interest".'
Really? Even allowing for the fact that
von Aesch is dead, can we really believe
that Scotland Yard openly released his
name to the press as a 'person of
interest'?
If they did - to tweak a famous quote of
Eric Cantona - it would appear they are
throwing red herrings to the journalists
who follow their trawler.
But the Mirror wasn’t alone. Just two
days previously a Daily Mail headline
had screamed: 'Was Maddie snatched by
monster
[von Aesch]
who killed this little lookalike?
That's the dramatic new lead uncovered
by British detectives so why are the
Portuguese refusing to investigate?'
That 'dramatic new lead uncovered by
British detectives'? That would be the
one that was plastered all over British
newspapers throughout August and
September 2007. The truth is, there
never has been any connection between
the abduction of Ylenia Lenhard and the
reported disappearance of Madeleine
McCann.
Interpol confirmed as much on 17 August
2007, when they informed the Portuguese
police (PJ) that Swiss police had not
managed to 'establish any link to the
case of the disappearance of the British
girl Madeleine McCann.'
Is it any wonder then that the PJ
decided instead to concentrate their
efforts on the 'real' indications of the
two operational specialist search dogs -
which indicated at a number of
locations, as well as items, connected
to the McCanns - as opposed to some
spurious connection to von Aesch, that
even the Swiss police said didn't exist.
Despite various newspaper reports, there
is no evidence that
von Aesch
was in the Algarve at the time or that
he was in Praia da Luz on May 3rd. It
was an unsubstantiated rumour which the
press were happy to utilise to add
credibility to their wafer thin 'account
of the truth'.
This is confirmed by Vreni Von Aesch,
Aesch's widow, who has categorically
denied that her husband was in Praia da
Luz on the day of Madeleine's
disappearance. No doubt there will be
those who think, 'she would say that,
wouldn't she?' But is her word any less
than Jenny Murat, who says her son
Robert was with her all evening of May
3rd, or that of Kate McCann, who 'just
knows' that Madeleine was abducted.
The truth of the matter is that Scotland
Yard officers travelled to Switzerland
in September last year to investigate
von Aesch. The greeting they received
from the Swiss police was unequivocal.
"Based on the previous findings that can
be made between the cases of Ylenia
Lenhard and Madeleine McCann there is no
connection," said Hanspeter Krüsi of the
St. Gallen District Police.
So why did the UK press make a big
splash on von Aesch in May and July this
year, when any link between the two
cases was already dead in the water?
Were they really tossed a fishy line by
Scotland Yard?
If not, it would seem that the reports
were based on pure speculation, thus
revealing they have no more idea what,
or who, Scotland Yard are really
investigating than Patrick Starfish.
Nigel Moore is based in Leicester,
England, United Kingdom, and is a
Stringer for Allvoices.
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