A brief insight into the life of Marcos Aragão Correia
1975 - Born: Madeira.
2000? - Aged 25, sets up legal practice in Madeira claiming he ‘specialises in human rights’ cases.
2001? - He sets himself up as head of a ‘Human Rights Association’, ACED, widely regarded as a self-promotional ‘joke’ in Portugal, and which has a track record of making outrageous legal claims.
2004? - Co-founds right-wing, nationalist, political party, which as yet has little popular support and no MPs or Councillors. That party has taken into membership a number of people with neo-Nazi ideology, some of them who have served prison sentences for their crimes.
3 May 2007 - Madeleine McCann reported missing.
5 May 2007 - He now claims that on this day, two days after Madeleine was reported missing, he attended a spiritualist church on Madeira for the first time, and on returning home, sometime before midnight, had a vision in which he learnt that Madeleine had been raped by paedophiles and killed (see also below). NOTE: We do not accept this account as truthful. He had previously claimed that ‘underworld sources’ had told him about Madeleine having been abducted, raped and killed (see next item)
6 May 2007 - This is the day Marcos Aragão Correia had previously claimed that his underworld sources told him that Madeleine McCann had been raped and killed and her body thrown into a ‘murky lake’. He later admitted that this had been a lie.
9 May 2007 - He claimed that on this day he told the Portuguese Police what the underworld sources had told him about Madeleine being killed. He says the PJ ignored him.
21 June 2007 - Aragão Correia organises a release of yellow balloons on Madeira in support of the McCanns’ claims that Madeleine had been abducted. This is the first clear sign that he was actively supporting the McCanns’ campaign.
June to November 2007 - There is no information about his actions during this period, except claiming that he sent a recorded delivery letter to the McCanns (see below). Other evidence (see below) suggests that by September 2007, or soon afterwards, he was probably in touch with private detectives from Método 3, negotiating a lucrative financial deal with them, on behalf of the McCanns, to (a) arrange searches of the Arade Dam (see below) and (b) to represent child murderess and serial liar Leonor Cipriano in a set of legal proceedings primarily intended to target Gonçalo Amaral.
2 Oct 2007 - Claims to have sent a Recorded Delivery letter from Madeira to the McCanns in Rothley on that date, allegedly containing details of ‘vital clues and evidence’ in the case. He also says that he had earlier notified the Polícia Judiciária in Funchal (Madeira) about his concerns but got no reply.
17 Oct 2007 - Says he was notified that the Recorded Delivery letter never arrived to the McCanns, although allegedly the letter was ‘signed for’.
13 Nov 2007 - Mysteriously sues the Portuguese postal service (the Correios de Portugal - CTT) for allegedly failing to deliver this letter. He told the court that heard his claim: “They are controversial matters, because there is no material proof of them, but I assure you there is a high degree of credibility about them. I am fulfilling my duty as a Portuguese citizen to take my ideas to the right place. I took my ideas to the PJ in Funchal, but since they didn’t reply, I took them direct to the McCanns”. He says a CTT official falsely reported that the Recorded Delivery letter had been received. The judge dismissed Aragão Correia’s claim as unsubstantiated and ordered him to pay court costs of 100 euros (around £80). Source: Madeira Daily News, 13 Nov 2007.
10 Dec 2007 - Says that on this day, he personally visited the Arade Dam with Método 3 detectives. He says that on the same day, he also told the Portuguese Police about his theory that Madeleine’s body was probably lying in the Arade Dam, near the tower by the lake. He said he had reached this conclusion after carefully considering information he said he had received from ‘underworld sources’, who told him that Madeleine’s body was ‘in a murky lake, with a beach, near some trees’. Later, when questions were asked about his sources of information and why he hadn’t acted sooner, he changed his story to say that he had had a ‘supernatural indication’ or ‘vision’ of where Madeleine’s body might be (see below).
Dec 2007 - late Jan 2008 - Said Portuguese Police did ‘nothing’ to act on his ‘information’.
Jan 2008 - Says that he paid British divers from Dive Time, Lagos, Algarve to search one part of the Arade Dam at a cost of at least £1,200 a day. He says he did this out of the goodness of his own heart, but he later conceded that Método 3 paid him ‘expenses’ [denied by Método 3]. He was described in sections of the British press as ‘a Good Samaritan’ for apparently funding these searches out of his own pocket. The media were conveniently on hand to record the discovery of a 17-foot length of cord, which he said ‘could have been used to tie up Madeleine’. At the same time the head of the Portuguese Police publicly stated that in his opinion the McCanns were made arguidos ‘hastily’ by Gonçalo Amaral and his colleagues.
Mar 2008 - Further search of the dam, this time managing to find ‘two black plastic bags of bones’ in the lake. Once again, media were on hand to take photos of Dive Time divers, bags of bones etc. - there were lots of pictures of divers in black wet-suits in British media. Aragão Correia says he is ‘99% certain that Madeleine’s body will be found here’ in the Arade Dam.
These stories served a number of purposes, including:
(a) promoting the claim by the head of the Portuguese police that they had acted ‘hastily’ in making Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann suspects
(b) promoting the notion that the Portuguese police had been incompetent by (allegedly) deliberately ignoring the vital evidence of Mr Aragão Correia’s underworld sources that Madeleine had been killed and her body dumped at the bottom of a murky lake
(c) re-opening the possibility that Madeleine’s body being dumped in the Arade Dam tied in with the suspicious sighting of a woman transferring a young child to another car in the Silves area, the woman being said to look like Michaela Walczuch, Robert Murat’s girlfriend
(d) promoting the view that Dr Gerald and Kate McCann were not responsible for what happened to Madeleine. Aragão Correia said: “I don't believe Kate and Gerry did it. It could have been a single madman or a gang”.
Mar - October 2008 - Silence from Aragão Correia, apart from, in the background...
8 April 2008 - Visits Leonor Cipriano in Odemira Prison and has discussions with the Prison Governor there.
October 2008 - Dramatically pops up in court to replace the lawyer representing the serial liar and murderess of her own daughter, Leonor Cipriano, currently serving a 16-year jail term for murder, in her claim that a confession was beaten out of her by Gonçalo Amaral and his four detectives. The original claim against Mr Amaral had been made in 2006 by other lawyers but was now, suddenly, being handled by Marcos Aragão Correia.
November 2008 - Admits to a proposed deal to ‘crucify Gonçalo Amaral’, He tells the lawyer representing the four detectives accused together with Gonçalo Amaral that his detectives will only get suspended sentences for a more minor offence if they give evidence against Gonçalo Amaral and state that it was he who ordered the torture and that he was there when it happened.
November 2008 - Calls defence lawyer for Gonçalo Amaral, Mr Cabrita, a ‘goat’ in the court room [‘cabrita’ is also the Portuguese word for goat].
21 January 2009 - Suspended as a lawyer/barrister by the Madeira Bar Association [Madeira Lawyers’ Order] and thrown out of court by the trial judge in the case against Mr Amaral based on Ms Cipriano’s allegations. He was later allowed to continue representing Ms Cipriano.
22 May 2009 - Wins the case against Gonçalo Amaral, at which Mr Amaral gets an 18-month suspended jail sentence for allegedly filing a false report. Says triumphantly: “Gonçalo Amaral has been convicted. The target has been hit”.
8 June 2009 - Brings new proceedings against Gonçalo Amaral on behalf of Leonor Cipriano, claiming once more that Amaral’s men had tortured her.
July 2009 - Brings further new proceedings against Gonçalo Amaral, this time on behalf of Leonor Cipriano’s former partner, António Leandro David da Silva, who also alleged that he had been assaulted by Amaral’s men.
3 October 2009 - Tries to sabotageGonçalo Amaral’s birthday partyby driving up outside the restaurant where the party was being held, making a provocative obscene gesture, and then fabricating to the Public Ministry Police claiming that he had been assaulted.
