Joaquim Jose Marques is the man in the sketch released by the McCanns - he was interviewed immediately after Maddy went missing and interviewed again yesterday before being ruled out of their enquiries

A Portuguese pig farmer has been identified as the man shown in the sketch of Madeleine McCann's alleged abductor.

Joaquim Jose Marques was questioned by police this week after a holidaymaker told detectives he resembled the image released by Kate and Gerry McCann, which is being reproduced on a million wanted posters.

The farmer, who has a daughter of Madeleine's age, has been eliminated from the police investigation. He has not been arrested or named as an official suspect in the case.

Police said they also questioned him in May last year, 20 days after Madeleine vanished, after another tourist said they found his behaviour suspicious.

 

The Daily Mail yesterday tracked Mr Marques to his ramshackle farm in Pedragosa, four miles from the Algarve resort where Madeleine disappeared.

He refused to speak about the international hunt for the man shown in the posters - which have been sent to Interpol and to Portugal, Spain and North Africa.

He screamed obscenities at callers to the isolated farm and then returned brandishing an ancient-looking rifle.
Standing among his pigs and surrounded by feral dogs, Mr Marques shouted: "Leave me alone, leave me alone... look at this face, is this the face in the picture?"

Mr and Mrs McCann, both 39, believe the sketch could show the man who took their daughter from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.

It was drawn by an FBItrained forensic artist based on descriptions by British tourist Gail Cooper, who told police how a "creepy man" came to her villa in Praia da Luz, asking for donations for a nearby orphanage, only days before Madeleine went missing.

Mrs Cooper, 50, of Newark, Nottinghamshire, said she saw the man three times, once when he was hanging around a children's beach outing.

Portuguese police have dismissed her sightings and the e-fit as having "no credibility" and say the McCanns are using them as a "diversion tactic".

They remain convinced Madeleine died last May 3 and that her parents were involved in her disappearance. Mr and Mrs McCann, of Rothley, are still official suspects in the case.

But the couple's private investigation agency Metodo 3 believe the sketch could show the abductor. Their hotline has received dozens of calls from those who think they have seen the man in the sketch.

A police source told the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha the image "could apply to many, many people," and said Mr Marques was not a suspect.

He said: "Contact with the individual was not in any shape or form an interrogation. It was just an informal contact to clear up any suspicions." Neighbours described Mr Marques as a reclusive character who had moved to the isolated farm last year to live quietly with his British-born girlfriend and their daughter, who is three or four.