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latest update: 16-May-2012 18:33:23

madeleine

Wikileaks:UK police ‘developed evidence’ against the McCanns
Updated: 24-Dec-2010

Photo: <i>CHRIS GRAEME, The Resident Group</i>.

Photo: CHRIS GRAEME, The Resident Group.

By CHRIS GRAEME

chris.graeme@theresidentgroup.com

The British Ambassador to Portugal confided with his US counterpart in September 2007 that British police had “helped develop” evidence against Kate and Gerry McCann over the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine that year.

In the latest explosive WikiLeaks revelation, the Spanish daily newspaper El País published news on Tuesday that in a telegram dated September 28, 2007, US Ambassador Alfred Hoffman revealed details of a short conversation he had had with Alexander Ellis, the newly-appointed British Ambassador to Lisbon.

“Ellis didn’t go into details about the case, but admitted that it was the British police themselves who found proof” which led them to suspect the McCann couple.

The United States Ambassador also revealed that his British counterpart had told him that the Portuguese and British police “were working cooperatively” on the investigations.

Two weeks earlier, Portuguese police had named Gerry and Kate McCann as ‘arguidos’ or formal suspects.

The McCanns’ spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, immediately downplayed the information, which appeared on news around the world this week, “as a completely historical note”, as did the couple’s lawyer Rogério Alves on TVi evening news on Tuesday. He said: “The Wikileaks revelation is not new information and does not justify the reopening of the case.”

Portuguese evening news coverage early this week included commentaries from former police detective, Gonçalo Amaral, who led the case into the disappearance of Madeleine.

Gonçalo Amaral, the author of the banned book Maddie - A Verdade da Mentira (Maddie – The Truth of the Lie), said on Monday night that it was “strange” that it had been necessary for an ambassador to talk about evidence in order to give “some veracity to the McCanns’ alleged involvement”.

“I led the investigation, I know what’s there and what needs to be done and I know that someone is responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance. I’ve no doubt about this.

“It was not the British police who reached these conclusions. I don’t know what evidence the British Ambassador was referring to. Evidence was collected by the Portuguese police in cooperation with the British police.”

Not relevant

The former inspector told the press that the leaked information could lead to the re-opening of the Madeleine case.

However, Portugal’s General-Attorney has also already come forward to say that this will not be the case as there is no new relevant evidence.

The cable to Washington, marked ‘confidential’ from Alfred Hoffman Junior, stated: “without delving into the details of the case, Ellis admitted that the British police had developed the current evidence against the McCann parents” and added “the British and Portuguese police have been working cooperatively”.

But the cable does not specify what evidence the British police are alleged to have gathered or even if the UK investigators were involved in the decision to formally name them as suspects.

In another cable, Hoffman stated: “Madeleine McCann’s disappearance in the south of Portugal in May 2007 has generated a lot of international media attention with controversy surrounding the Portuguese-led police investigation and the actions of Madeleine’s parents”.

He said that the British Ambassador thought that the “media frenzy was to be expected and was acceptable as long as government officials kept their comments behind closed doors”.

A spokesman from the British Embassy told the Algarve Resident on Tuesday: “We condemn any unauthorised release of classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK. They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and may put lives at risk. We have a very strong relationship with the US Government. That will continue.”

The Algarve Resident was unable to obtain a comment from the US Embassy

According to El País, the conversation between the two diplomats took place in Lisbon 19 days after Gerry and Kate McCann had left Portugal after being questioned at Polícia Judiciária headquarters in Portimão.

In that interrogation, on September 6, Madeleine’s parents were quizzed as suspects into the accidental death of their daughter and of then having “hidden” Madeleine’s body.

The case was later shelved because of lack of evidence on July 21, 2008 and the ‘arguido’ status on the McCanns was dropped.

One of the clearest examples of Portuguese-British police cooperation was that all of the analyses on material collected from the Praia da Luz apartment and the rental vehicles used by the McCanns and their friends were carried out at a laboratory in Birmingham and paid for by the British police.

Information widely published in the Portuguese press at the time was that information on potential evidence was “shared between the Portuguese and British police and discussed jointly”.

The press also reported on the apparent rivalry between the two police forces investigating the disappearance and criticising the methods used, rivalries and criticisms which were later downplayed when the British police stated that relations between the two forces had been “excellent”.