PJ wants the McCanns in the location of the crime
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The Judiciary Police wants to have in Portugal, in the next month, Kate and Gerry McCann, the British couple whose three-year-old daughter disappeared from Praia da Luz, Algarve. The objective of the Portuguese investigators is to try, with a re-enactment of the night on the 3rd of May in the location of the crime, to understand the various contradictions of the statements given by the last persons who saw Maddie alive. In this group, there are seven friends who were accompanying the McCanns in the dinner of the Tapas Bar, when the alarm of the disappearance of the girl was given.

Clarence Mitchell, the press adviser of the family, confirmed yesterday the PJ’s request, but did not reveal dates, or details of the re-enactment. He was not clear on the possibility of the McCanns returning, leaving in the 'air the hypothesis' that the couple would accept willingly the diligence if they stopped being arguidos.

Other of the wishes of the McCanns to agree to the participation in the reconstitution would be that the same is subjected to a TV broadcast. Something that is unthinkable in the light of the legal Portuguese system, where the process is kept under the secrecy of Justice. Police sources said to the CM that the shelving of the suspicions against the parents of the child are not predictable before the end of the inquiry. Gerry, Kate or other of the English friends who spent holidays in Luz are not obliged to return, unless, if there are strong signs of the practice of a crime, which would lead to international warrants to be issued.

IMPORTANT WITNESSES

The day of yesterday was important for the PJ. They cross-examined again Jane Tanner and Russell O'Brien, the couple that had the biggest contradictions in the statements given in the last months. The PJ was intending to know exactly where Jane affirmed to have seen Maddie's kidnapper and how she managed to describe him after several months, although she did not do it on the days that followed the girl’s disappearance. Another doubt was how it was possible for her to see a man carrying a child in front of the apartment exactly at the same hour while Gerry was standing just a few meters away. And why Maddie’s father and a friend that were talking in that place did not see the same stranger with the girl.

As for Russell, the objective is to explain his goings to the bedroom where his daughters were sleeping, during the dinner. The Englishman was the one who stayed away longer from the table of the restaurant. He said what one of the daughters had vomited while she was sleeping, but there was no request to change dirty bed sheets.

SPECTACLE AT THE POLICE DOOR

The police display yesterday was enormous, during the whole morning and afternoon, near the installations of the police of Leicester. Dozens of photographers concentrated near the gates and tried to register the entries of the main protagonists: three elements of the PJ (Paulo Rebelo on the right, in the photo from above, accompanied by his team of inspectors) and the couple Jane Tanner and Russell O'Brien.

HIGH SECURITY ON THE POLICE STATION

The headquarters of the Leicester Police - where the interrogations took place - is surrounded by great measures of security. Nobody goes through the gate without obtaining a prior authorization.

MADDIE'S MOTHER AT HOME

Kate McCann came yesterday at the door of house. Only to close the door, furious, while noticing the presence of Portuguese journalists. Her friend wrote down the license plate of the car of the CM and phoned to the spokesman of the couple, Clarence Mitchell.

TEAM WITH AGITATED DAY

The three elements of the Judiciary Police which will, until next Friday, accompany the interrogations to the friends of the McCanns went out early from the Ramada Hotel, where they are staying. Before 09h00 a car of the Leicester police stopped at the Hotel's main entry and took the investigators even to headquarters. They entered in the headquarters in great speed and followed up to a building which was not possible for the journalists to see. There, they accompanied the investigations, which were made by the local police. They could not ask questions directly to the witnesses, but they where allowed to make suggestions.

The rogatory letter was sufficiently to authorize new questions and even to request new diligences. What can still be done till next Friday

'UNTOUCHABLE' IMAGE OF KATE E GERRY

The neighbourhood is peaceful. Equal to others which fill the small city of Rothley, where several practically equal dwellings stand out. In the street that gives access to the house - the McCanns House is the last one of the village and can be distinguished by the toys that are kept near one of the windows �?there are almost no signs of life.
Two cars are at the door and Kate and Gerry prepared their trip to Brussels, set for tomorrow, with the couple travelling in a flight expected to be in the end of the afternoon and with a departure of an airport of London.

A little time has passed since the lunch hour when, the door opens and Kate comes to the entry. She says goodbye to a friend but the presence of the journalists of the CM hastens the farewell. Kate closes the door, remains hidden and Englishman that had gone out from the house stops in front of the car rented by the CM. Ostensibly, taking the number of the license plate and, by phone, he informs Clarence Mitchell, the adviser of the McCanns, that there are journalists at the door of the couple - a break of the compromise taken by the generality of the journalists, who accepted rules imposed by the McCanns and guided visits of the couple for photographic sessions. The CM does not accept compromises of this type.

When the incident ended - with the exit of the journalists of the CM-, the city seems to have forgotten Maddie.

DETAILS

HOTEL CHANGES RULES
The stay of the team of the Judiciary Police of Portimão in the Ramada Hotel, in Leicester, altered the internal rules of that unity. The bar, which was usually open not for guests until 01h00, now closes at 23h00.

PACIFIC FAMILIARITY
Portuguese journalists and police are put up in the same hotel, in the centre of the city of Leicester. The familiarity between all is appeasing, but the silence is maintained. Paulo Rebelo the PJ‘s coordinator and responsible for the department of Portimão, goes on repeating to the journalists that he does not give any statements.

CHANGE OF COURSE
At the same hour in that several of journalists were concentrated at the door of the police of Leicester to register the arrival of Jane Tanner and Russell O’Brien, to be questioned, Clarence Mitchell, the spokesman of the McCann, was calling the reporters for a press conference at 20 kilometres of distance. The dash was general.

50 WITNESSES
The lawyers of the couple McCann presented a list to the police of more than 50 persons, besides the group of friends that spent holidays with them in Praia da Luz, to be heard in England. They are close persons of the couple, defence witnesses.

FRIENDS WITHOUT LAWYERS
As they are cross-examined in the capacity of witnesses, all the friends of the McCanns have no use for the lawyers' presence.

CRUCIAL WITNESSES
The most important evidences are those of Jane and Russell, the first ones being heard because they assume total priority for the Judiciary Police.

EMPTY MEMORIAL
In Rothley, the memorial to the dead in the world wars, where were the most varied objects put in memory of the child, has nothing now.

SILENCE RULES
In the commercial establishments nobody wants to talk about the child, keeping some distance of the motives of a disappearance that ran throughout the World.

Source: Correio da Manhã