Martin Smith and his family's evidence was taken seriously by both the PJ and Operation Grange, who featured it on Crimewatch. I see no reason why it should be forgotten now, because it was never resolved; unlike the Tanner sighting which 'almost certainly' was.
Smith's opinion that he saw Gerry McCann is just as worthy as the opinions of all those thousands of people who reported sightings of Madeleine McCann. Yet all those who expressed outrage because some of those sightings weren't thoroughly investigated seem quite prepared to disagree with Mr Smith despite not knowing who he saw.
I will continue to mention the Smith sighting when necessary; not because of anything Amaral says and not because I believe it's true, but because it shouldn't be ignored.
I don't think a 'phone dump' was organised by the British police at all, unless you have evidence of that?
“I don't think a 'phone dump' was organised by the British police at all, unless you have evidence of that?”You may be correct in that I do not have evidence that the British police organised a phone dump in 2007 … but then I do not have evidence that the Portuguese Police took any steps to organise a phone dump either.
What I do have evidence of is that in 2007 the
only effort made by the Portuguese to check phone data was, according to the files, in relation to the McCanns and the Tapas seven.
https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MOBILE_PHONE_ANALYSIS.htmhttps://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/PHONE_TEXTS.htmThe present information regarding Brueckner’s phone was extrapolated from phone information from 2007 held by Scotland Yard which in my opinion could only have been obtained by cooperation with the Portuguese Prosecutors and the phone providers at the relevant time.
So it figures somewhere but in the myopia of the Amaral investigation only the unimportant family traffic was considered of interest.
SnipOfficers from the BKA, Germany's federal police, obtained the number for a mobile phone that Brueckner had in 2007, but it was only when they cross-referenced it with data compiled by Scotland Yard from phone masts around Praia da Luz that they could place the 43-year-old near the Ocean Club from where Madeleine was taken.
They then discovered his phone received a call in Praia da Luz from someone at 7.32pm.
The call lasted until 8.02pm and the person who called Brueckner has not yet been identified. Madeleine vanished between 9.10pm and 10pm that evening.
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters revealed painstaking Anglo-German police work led to the huge breakthrough
Mr Wolters said: 'Brueckner's telephone number comes from our investigation, but British police have a data pool from 2007 from Praia da Luz of all mobile numbers [used in that area at the time], so we put our telephone number to the data of the British police – and it matched.
'So we think that our suspect was, on the day Madeleine was kidnapped in Praia da Luz, near the apartment.'
He declined to provide details of how the BKA had found Brueckner's mobile number in 2007.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8418479/Christian-Brueckner-identified-suspect-McCann-case-Mets-call-log-breakthrough.html