12 June 07
"There will be a period of reflection before we decide on what is the best role for Kate and I," the girl's father wrote on the site.
"The campaign and the search for Madeleine will continue and with everyone's help we will find her. So please stay with us."
13 June 07
Police in Portugal are investigating an anonymous letter and a map claiming to show where missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann's body is buried.
The letter, sent to Dutch paper De Telegraaf, identifies an area 15km (9.3 miles) from where Madeleine vanished.
It strongly resembles another letter sent to the same newspaper last year, accurately pinpointing where two missing Belgian girls were buried.
Ch Insp Olegario de Sousa said officers were "checking the information".
Around eight plain-clothed police officers visited the village of Arao, which is 15km from Praia da Luz, on Wednesday evening.
It is understood that a formal request was made to a section of the police called the GNR to carry out searches in the area.
They spent an hour and 20 minutes looking at fields and the surrounding area ahead of possible searches on Thursday morning.
'Everything necessary'
The Madeleine letter pinpoints a dirt track north of Odiaxere in the Algarve, according to De Telegraaf.
The paper said that the letter claims Madeleine, of Rothley, Leicestershire, is buried "north of the road under branches and rocks, around six to seven metres off the road".
Beside a cross and two question marks, the sender has written "vermoedelijke vindplaats Madeleine" - the place where Madeleine can probably be found.
Portugal map
Portuguese police would not confirm whether they had begun searching the area.
But Mr Sousa confirmed Portuguese police were aware of the map and were doing "everything necessary".
He said: "There have been exchanges between Dutch police and us.
"The information indicated an area 15km from the place of the disappearance of the little child. It is not far from Praia da Luz. We are checking the information like we check everything in this case for importance."
Asked if a search would include digging, he replied: "If the information gives us a precise location where we can look, we will do it."
Tip-off letter
The BBC's Caroline Hawley said it was difficult to assess the reliability of the map, given that Portuguese detectives had received hundreds of tip-offs which have not proved useful in the course of the investigation.
Officers also reported that the map was vague, she added.
Dutch police are studying similarities between the new letter and one received by De Telegraaf pointing to the whereabouts of Belgian step-sisters Stacey Lemmens, seven, and Nathalie Mahy, 10.
The girls were murdered in June 2006 after they disappeared from a late-night fair in the town of Liege.
On the day that the letter was received, police found their bodies at the spot indicated on an enclosed map.
A convicted paedophile, Abdullah Ait Oud, is now on remand awaiting trial for murder.The Telegraaf believes the letter comes from the same sender because the phrase "vermoedelijke vindplaats" was also used in the tip-off letter last year about Stacey and Nathalie, BBC correspondent Alix Kroeger added.Madeleine disappeared while on holiday with her parents in Praia da Luz on 3 May.
It is believed she was abducted from a holiday apartment while her parents ate at a nearby restaurant.
Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have travelled across Europe in an effort to find her.
The couple were also featured in an appeal for information on BBC One's Crimewatch.
http://www.anorak.co.uk/174232/madeleine-mccann/finding-madeleine-mccanns-body-vermoedelijke-vindplaats.html/Next to a cross and two question marks, the sender writes “vermoedelijke vindplaats Madeleine” – this is the place where Madeleine can probably be found.Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, he told us, had revealed in an article that they’d received a letter from someone claiming to be Madeleine’s abductor. The letter alleged that her body was buried in Odiáxere, about ten miles from Luz.
There had been plenty of crank calls and letters from all over Europe. The reason why this claim had been singled out by the newspaper as a story (not that there ever has to be a reason, or so it seems) was that
the letter was apparently very similar to one received the year before regarding the location of the bodies of two young girls abducted in Belgium. They had been found later the same day, albeit fifteen kilometres away from the location given.A hundred or so reporters had now gone up to Odiáxere to look for Madeleine’s body.
I might sound quite matter-of-fact about this now, but at the time I was beside myself, of course. It felt as if cold, hard reality was hitting me with a sickening thud. I remember leaving the room and locking myself in the toilet. It was probably the tiniest cubicle I’ve ever seen, which only intensified my suffocating fear. I pulled out my mobile phone and began to text six devout family members and friends (quietly, in my head, I thought of them as my ‘prayer group’): ‘Please pray for Madeleine.’ I returned to the meeting room. Somebody texted back: ‘Of course. Everything OK?’ The lack of a response was probably enough of an answer.
Gerry was far more rational about this incident than I was, although I’m sure deep down he was just as scared and not as certain as he seemed. ‘Kate, where is the credibility?’ he tried to reassure me. ‘This information has come from a newspaper acting irresponsibly!’
He was proved right, thankfully. The PJ were in contact with the Dutch journalists to compare the two letters, which were found to be quite different, and searches of the area later that day turned up nothing. (Madeleine)
Abdallah Ait Oud (born 23 July 1967 in La Hestre in Belgium ), is a criminal Belgian original Moroccan and Lebanese , convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing Stacy Lemmens small and Nathalie Mahy in Liège .
On 9 June 2006 at a neighborhood rummage sale Saint-Léonard in Liege , he was guilty of kidnapping, rape and murder of Stacy Lemmens small (7 years) and Nathalie Mahy (10 years).
The bodies of the girls were found several days later in a nearby underground, near the site of the former colliery Baneux .
His trial began on 26 May 2008 , the foundations of Liège , under the aegis of the judge Stephane Goux (who had previously chaired the trial Dutroux, Martin, Lelievre and Nihoul in 2004 Arlon ).
On 10 June 2008 , although he has always maintained his innocence, the jury convicted the accused of all charges, as well as the rape of Stacy he was not initially charged. Abdallah Ait Oud was unable to convince the jury of his innocence in the face of facts, mainly , :
the presence of 3 hair Stacy present in his underwear, recognized by a mitochondrial DNA analysis controversial as less reliable than nuclear DNA ; however they are of the same length, same thickness and same texture and even color ;
the presence of fibers from the chamber of his companion on children's clothing ;
the presence of fibers from the jeans of Abdallah Ait Oud on clothing girls, assuming intense contact ;
polygraph test inconclusive ;
too vague explanations of his time between the time of the disappearance of the girls and his surrender to the police;
criminal record of the same type (raping his niece and another girl) .
On June 11, 2008 , the court imposes the heaviest penalty required by the General Counsel or life imprisonment, along with a provision of government (security) for a period of 10 years .
On 16 June 2008 , Abdallah Ait an appeal in cassation. According to his counsel, Mr. Martins, "He wants his fight continues. He wants to continue to maintain his innocence and go to the end " .
Nathalie Mahy was the daughter of Didier Mahy and Catherine Dizier.
Stacy Lemmens was the daughter of Thierry Lemmens and Christiane Granziero.
Granziero had been found guilty of child neglect and was arrested on January 17, 2008 for drug trafficking.DisappearanceOn June 10, 2006 at 01:00, the
two were playing outside the bar "Aux Armuriers" in the borough Saint-Léonard, while Catherine Dizier and her friend Thierry Lemmens were inside,
reportedly drunk[citation needed].
Around 3 a.m., their disappearance was noticed and the police and Child Focus alerted.
On June 28, t
he bodies of both girls were found in a sewer in Liège, some 400 metres from the bar "Aux Armuriers".
The Justice Department also confirmed that
DNA of a third person has been found on the bodies. The identity of this third person has not yet been established,
since incredibly, there are still no conclusive results of the DNA analysis.After looking into the investigation files, the
father of Stacy Lemmens declared that he believed Ait-Oud was guilty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Nathalie_Mahy_and_Stacy_LemmensTwo Belgian girls found dead on Wednesday had been strangled and one of them was raped, prosecutors said.
There was also widespread anger at the behaviour of tehir parents - the two girls had been playing outside a cafe-bar in the city of Liege at 1.30am while Nathalie's mother and Stacy's father were drinking inside, surrounded by their four other children.
After a massive police investigation, the decomposing bodies of the two girls were
found in a storm drain near to a railway track - 18 days after their disappearance.
The bodies were discovered after De Telegraaf, a Dutch newspaper, received an anonymous letter containing two street maps, suggesting that the girls would be found near the railway line -
although the bodies were discovered more than a mile away.
Portuguese police said today that they were taking seriously the tip-off made, in Dutch, to the same newspaper and a source at De Telegraaf said Dutch police believed it had come from the same source.
Abdallah Ait Oud, a convicted child rapist has been charged with the abduction of the two girls after handing himself in to police. Today's discoveries took place close to his home but police have admitted they have no new evidence linking him to the case.
A convicted Belgian paedophile of Morrocan origin, Abdallah Ait-Oud, was arrested before the bodies were found and is still being held. He continues to deny any involvement.
Thus,
at the beginning of June, she informed us that the body could have been hidden in the outlet of a sewer pipe at Praia da Luz, or on the cliffs to the west of the beach, where she happened to run.
She will say later that this information had been given to her by mediums possessing psychic power. (TOTL)
