Tapas Nine witness says 'Mediterranean man took Madeleine'By DAVID WILKES and VANESSA ALLEN
Last updated at 10:12 20 November 2007
The woman who believes she saw Madeleine McCann being abducted revealed yesterday that
she has never named Robert Murat to police as the man she saw. Instead, Jane Tanner, 36, thinks he was "Mediterranean looking".
Miss Tanner, one of the so- called Tapas Nine, says she remains "stricken with guilt" over failing to prevent the abduction.
"I felt I could have stopped this all from happening," she said. "I think of that every day. I have to live with it for ever, that guilt is never going to go away."
But she admitted:
"I simply don't know if I could identify again the man I saw that night. I've never pointed the finger at Robert Murat because I simply don't know if it was him or not. "I would say the man I saw was more local, or Mediterranean looking, rather than British. He had dark, almost black, long hair and had swarthy skin.
"He was dressed in that sort of smart casual way European people dress."
Miss Tanner, a mother of two, said Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry have told her she shouldn't feel any guilt about what happened.
Though some details of Miss Tanner's interview emerged at the weekend, it was broadcast in full on BBC1's Panorama programme last night.
She spoke out as it emerged that the private detectives hired by the McCanns are investigating claims that a witness saw a child who looked like Madeleine with a couple on May 5, two days after the girl disappeared in Portugal.
The unnamed witness was said to have identified one of the couple as Michaela Walczuch, the girlfriend of Murat.
In a picture yesterday, she bore an uncanny likeness to a figure drawn by a forensic artist from Miss Tanner's recollections.
Although the impression, commissioned by the McCanns, has no facial features, the length of the figure's brown hair is like Miss Walczuch's.
The build of Murat's girlfriend and her style of clothing also match the impression.
German-born Miss Walczuch, 34, refused to comment when approached outside her home in Lagos, which she shares with her estranged husband Luis Antonio and their eightyearold daughter.
Her lawyer later described the allegation against her as ridiculous.
Murat, 33, who remains an official suspect in the case, lives in Praia da Luz with his 71-year-old mother Jenny.
He has insisted he was at home the night Madeleine vanished. Miss Tanner appealed to people to "rack their brains" to see if they know the man she saw.
Tears welling in her eyes, marketing executive Miss Tanner, of Exeter, said: "Every day I see him there, striding away, carrying Madeleine away and I try desperately to remember more detail.
"I think about it over and over again. It's horrible.
"He had his face turned away from me, sort of sideways and it was very dark. I just didn't see it properly, I wish to God I had." Miss Tanner, the first of the seven friends who were on holiday with Mr and Mrs McCann to speak out, says she saw the man carrying a child around 9.15pm on May 3 as she made her way back to her apartment at the Mark Warner holiday complex in Praia da Luz.
She was holidaying with her partner Dr Russell O'Brien, 36, Madeleine's parents and five other friends.
The group were taking it in turns to check on their children who they had left in their apartments while they dined together at a nearby tapas bar.
Explaining why the group had left their children in their rooms - something Mr and Mrs McCann, of Rothley, Leicestershire, have been heavily criticised for - Miss Tanner said: "I think we were lulled into a sense of security by the fact that it was very much a family resort and quite quiet."
It was on one of her regular checks to see her two daughters, age two and four, that Miss Tanner saw the suspect, about ten to 15ft in front of her, cross from left to right, carrying a child.
She said that when she was later told Madeleine had disappeared "the image of that man carrying the child came into my head and I felt physically sick".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-495092/Tapas-Nine-witness-says-Mediterranean-man-took-Madeleine.html#ixzz0fQNlbj4t[/quote]
Jane Tanner positively identified Robert Murat as being the person she saw carrying "Madeleine".
Don't know very much about this case, do you?
Jane Tanner was placed inside a police surveillance van (with windows that allow you to look outside, from the van, without being seen), the van was parked in a strategic position, near apartment 5A, and PJ investigators took Murat with them, making exactly the same walk the man carrying a child had made, according to Jane Tanner.
Jane Tanner looked at Murat walking and told police she was sure he was the same man, she recognised the way he walked, with no doubt.
- 'A Verdade da Mentira', 'Maddie: The Truth of the Lie' by Gonçalo Amaral
