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Original Source: EXPRESS: 12 NOVEMBER 2007 |
Monday November 12,2007
By Martin Evans in Praia
da Luz |
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THE hunt for Madeleine McCann switched to the Balkans last night after a
British tourist said he saw the little girl bundled into a car.
The man said he heard the blonde child scream in English: “I want my daddy.”
Detectives are now hunting for a couple who were driving a black Volkswagen
Golf.
The incident, in the Bosnian town of Medjugorje,
is the latest sighting being investigated across Europe.
Kate and Gerry McCann have been informed and were last night said to be
cautiously hopeful.
The tourist said he was visiting the Catholic shrine at Medjugorje,
when he saw a man and a woman with a blonde child aged about four.
The father of six, from County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, who asked not to
be named, said he was immediately struck by how much she looked like Madeleine.
He said: “From the minute I saw them, there seemed to be something odd going
on. They both had a very swarthy complexion and the toddler with them was a
blonde, fair child.
“She was wearing a little pink coat and was very agitated and sobbing. The
instant I saw her my heart skipped a beat because it
struck me that she looked like Madeleine McCann.
“I felt sure there was something wrong and started to move towards them. As
they saw me coming, they started walking faster away from me. I was sure the
child they had was not theirs.
“I got right up beside them, and was about to speak to the child when the man
put his hand over her mouth and shoved her into the car. He was pushing her
into the back seat and was yelling in a language I didn’t understand.”
Unfortunately the man was unable to take a photograph of the child, but he
jotted down the registration number of the car before it sped away.
The incident took place on November 1, close to the shrine at Medjugorje, in the south-west of the former Yugoslavian Republic
of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The man insisted he was 99.9 per cent certain the child was Madeleine.
He said: “I know the McCanns have had a lot of sightings that have so far
turned out to be incorrect but I feel in my heart that the information I have
should be investigated. People must understand that I’m either a man who has
seen Madeleine or I’m a man who saw a child incredibly like her. If I’m right,
her poor parents could be within reach of finding her.
“If I’m wrong, I’ll face that too but at least I’ll know I’ve done my duty as a
fellow human being and father. I have a toddler myself and I know the pain I’d
have in my heart if our family was the victim of an abduction.”
Last night, the McCanns’ official spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “We are
checking the Bosnia
sighting like all the rest.” |
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http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/24904/Tourist-spotted-Madeleine |
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