Missing in Portugal

Studying the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann will help the Indian police avoid the mistakes the police in Portugal are now accused of.

Madeleine McCann. A

On and on and on it goes, remorseless in its gruesome fascination, unyielding in its seductive impenetrability, interminable in its obsessing curiosity.

The Independent (London), September 14 Mathew Norman

I DO not think any other columnist could have summed up more succinctly the ongoing Portuguese police investigation into the disappearance of a three-year-old British girl. It is difficult to estimate how many pages have been written and how many hours of television time it has taken to tell us all the circumstances under which Madeleine McCann just vanished on the evening of May 3 from the seaside resort of Praia da Luz in southern Portugal.

The police appear to be proceeding on mere guesswork. Even if they have a few clues, they seem extremely reluctant to share them with the public. What a contrast to their garrulous counterparts elsewhere in the world. The Portuguese reticence is baffling to many in England who are used to an avalanche of information whenever a child goes missing. The police in the United Kingdom strongly favour the widest possible dissemination of vital details, motivated, of course, by a desire to make the child-snatcher go on the run and, in the process, get caught by an alert member of the public.

Kate and Gerry McCann, both 39, are a doctor couple from Leicestershire. She is a part-time general practitioner and he is a cardiologist. In addition to Madeleine, they have twins (a boy and a girl) younger than she. The family, along with seven other friends from the U.K., was on holiday in Praia da Luz on the Algrave, close to the Spanish border. During their stay there in May this year, it had become routine for the McCanns and their friends to meet for drinks and dinner at a nearby tapas bar, just a minutes walk from their living quarters.

The children of the guests staying at the resort were invariably left behind in the apartments after they had gone to sleep. By all accounts, the resort, a five-storey block on a street corner, was a very safe place. While they were dining, it was the practice of either parent to go into the apartments once every few minutes to check on the children. There was little to suggest that the place was either eerie or that those who were holidaying were being neglectful by leaving their children all by themselves. It is against this backdrop that on the fateful evening, Madeleine was found to be missing from her bed around 10 p.m. by her mother during a routine check. The police were alerted immediately.

The nearest police post was, however, a 30-minute-drive away, and valuable time was lost before they could take charge of the investigation. No material evidence was found at the scene to establish that this was the work of an intruder. There were no signs of violence. Nor were there any eyewitnesses worth the name, except one Tanner, a friend of the McCanns staying at the same resort, who told the police she saw a man carrying away a child wrapped in a towel at about the time Madeleine went missing. Another vague piece of information was that a few days after the occurrence, some people at Nellas, about 300 miles (480 kilometres) north of Praia da Luz, saw a nondescript individual travelling in a car with a child answering to Madeleines description. This was of no use in the absence of the identity of the man or the vehicle. Naturally, the investigation was a non-starter.

It has been a harrowing time since then for the couple distraught with the sudden loss of their daughter. They still believe that she is alive and that she was abducted and is being kept at some unknown place. But, if this were true, there should have been a motive for the crime, such as personal enmity or ransom. To this day there has not been any demand for money.

Press reporting of the incident naturally attracted widespread attention in England. The McCanns own publicity campaign for which some people criticise them all over Europe (including a visit to the Pope at the Vatican) helped generate tremendous sympathy and raised a fund (nearly 2 million) to conduct a private investigation parallel to the police enquiries. The couple hung on in Portugal for more than three months in the hope that they would get some clues. Since this proved to be a futile wait and they could not afford to remain in a foreign country for too long, they returned home in August.

Things, however, took a dramatic turn in early September when the McCanns were summoned by the Portuguese police for questioning. This gave rise to some optimism that there had possibly been a breakthrough. There was little by way of explanation why the couple were asked to come back from England. It was only after a few days that news trickled in, in bits and pieces, that the couple were under the police scanner as arguido, which in Portuguese legal parlance stands for suspects. Although it is more than a week since this took place, the police are yet to go to the press to tell the public what they were aiming at and what stage the investigation has reached. Whatever has been reported is based on conjectures, police leaks and versions of the facts from those related to the McCanns.

What is now more than reasonably established is that the police strongly suspect the involvement of the McCanns in Madeleines disappearance. They believe it was possible that she had been negligently over-sedated, just to ensure she slept well while the parents were at the restaurant, and this led to her death. Another police theory is that the child died because of an accident arising from parental negligence, and this had to be covered up somehow. The further surmise is that the couple had carried an injured or dead Madeleine in a car that they hired three weeks or so after the alleged abduction. And that is how a forensic examination of the vehicle in question yielded DNA evidence that matched Madeleine.

Interestingly, some of the forensic examination was carried out at a laboratory in England. The latters final report is awaited. Meanwhile, there is a news item that this laboratory found out from an examination of strands of Madeleines hair that she was being continuously sedated.

The McCanns and their close relatives have been shocked by the stand taken by the Portuguese police, while the couple themselves insist they are innocent. There are also indications that during police interrogation, Kate McCann was offered a mild sentence of about two years if she confessed to the crime of negligence. Though treated as suspects, the couple have been allowed to return to England on an undertaking that they will return whenever summoned.

As I write this, there is information that all relevant papers have been handed over to the jurisdiction judge for a decision on whether any charges can be framed. This is in spite the fact that one of the investigators associated with the case is credited with the view that the evidence collected to date is purely circumstantial and not enough to prove either that Madeleine was dead or that her parents had any role in her disappearance.

There is outrage in England over the Portuguese polices stance and a feeling that the McCanns are being framed only to cover up police incompetence. There are those who say that the very fact the police in that country have still not made an official statement, but have only inspired leaks, is indicative of a stalemate. Many experts, including former police officers in the U.K., say that whatever evidence has been collected to date is hardly sufficient to nail the McCanns, assuming that they are guilty in any manner. According to one DNA specialist, even if the DNA samples collected from the hired vehicle matched the missing child, what is the guarantee that these samples did not belong to her siblings who must have also travelled by the same vehicle several times.

The interest generated by the Madeleine case in the U.K. is incredible. The public is touched by the fact that a child is the victim. The McCanns are a young, attractive, middle-class couple, and this has also helped build up sympathy. The fact that they could raise 2 million in such a short time is proof of this. Also, the average citizen cannot believe that a mother could be so cruel as to do away with her own child.

One cannot help but endorse the widely held view that the Portuguese police have been definitely unprofessional. Firstly, it is alleged that they did not distribute a description of Madeleine for the public to keep a lookout for her in the days immediately after she was reported missing. If this is true, it was an unpardonable slip-up.

Also, they did not choose to seal the border with Spain and inspect vehicles travelling to and from Portugal immediately after they received the complaint. They did not seal the apartment from where the child went missing and allowed it, in the days after the occurrence, to be used by many people.

They also did not impound the vehicle from which they recovered the DNA evidence, which they are now citing against the McCanns. Further, when they found they were heading nowhere, the police reportedly turned down an offer of assistance from the London Metropolitan Police.

To cap this all, what has been baffling is the refusal of the police to share information with the public on a crime that is of great social relevance. The question being asked by many people is: Is this the way we are going to protect our children, who are our greatest assets? I am of the opinion that police officers in India will benefit from studying the way in which the case has been handled and train themselves to avoid all the mistakes the Portuguese police are now accused of.