The Phoney War

From the Daily Telegraph, 22 November 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/8132750/Madeleine-McCann-parents-sign-book-deal.html

Transworld, home to best-selling authors including Dan Brown and Frederick Forsyth, secured the rights to the couple's story after a bidding war. The McCann's are part-way through writing their account.

Mrs McCann said: "My reason for writing is simple - to give an account of the truth. Publishing this book has been a very difficult decision and is one that we have taken after much deliberation and with a very heavy heart.

"However, in the last few months, with the depletion of Madeleine's Fund, it is a decision that has virtually been taken out of our hands. Every penny we raise through its sales will be spent on our search for Madeleine. Nothing is more important to us than finding our little girl."

And from the Sunday Express, November 21.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/212734/Kate-and-Gerry-McCann-get-help-from-JK-Rowling-

The multi-millionaire Harry Potter writer suggested they use her literary agent Christopher Little who arranged a publishing deal with Transworld. JK Rowling has been giving the McCanns support since their daughter disappeared in Portugal in May 2007 aged three. The author contributed to a reward for finding Madeleine and in July 2007 she arranged for posters of Madeleine to be made available to book retailers around the world . Kate has already written 60,000 words, covering the period up to the couple’s heart-rending decision to return to Britain.

So which was it - a "bidding war" or an "arrangement"?

If you already ringfenced £20 from your budget for your own copy, come April, you are in for a nice surprise. It has been discounted by £3 already and includes free delivery.

Smoke and Mirrors - or Smoke and Fire?

This blog is called the Gaspar Statements, based on the statements that Drs Katerina and Arul Savio Gaspar gave to Leicestershire Police. The statements concerned suspicions that the Gaspars had regarding David Payne, one of the McCann's Tapas friends. These statements can be read here.

Dr Katerina Gaspar, in particular, was concerned that the behaviour of David Payne and Gerry McCann, together, may have indicated some paedophile activity taking place on a previous holiday. Now let me state plainly here, that as yet, no concrete proof of such activity has been made available. Dr Gaspar's statement is merely an educated guess. That guess could, of course, be completely wrong.

The Gaspars did, however, feel strongly enough about what they had witnessed, to go to the extent of making a statement to Leicestershire Police. A statement which could have, potentially, have had a massive impact on the Portuguese investigations as to what really happened to Madeleine.

We must ask why, then, both statements were withheld by Leicestershire Constabulary until such time as Goncalo Amaral, Policia Judiciaria Co-ordinator for the Madeleine McCann case, was removed from the investigation. The reason for this was given as "inappropriate criticism of the English Police who were ostensibly assisting the Policia Judiciaria in the enquiry".

The Gaspar statements may have been something, they may have been nothing; but why did LP feel they had the right to withhold them from the PJ for over six months?

You may wish to consider this in light of the statement by David Payne, who arranged both the earlier holiday in Majorca, and the holiday in Praia da Luz. When asked by a Sol journalist, "Why won't Mrs McCann answer the 48 questions set?" David Payne's astonishing response was,

"Because we have a pact. This is our matter only. It is nobody else's business."

This is the same David Payne that together with his wife Fiona, and the other Tapas friends, refused to return to Portugal for a reconstrcution of the events of 3rd May 2007.

Ask yourself what "pact" could possibly be more important than assisting the search for your supposed friend's "abducted" child.

The Canaries Are Beginning To Sing

The latest BIG news in the McCann case is not, of course, their petition or the new campaign or the new appeal for public money. It is, of course, the fact that three judges in Portugal, saw fit to overturn the earlier ban on the publishing and distribution of Dr Amaral's book, "The Truth Of The Lie". This reversal also applies to the DVD and television programmes associated with the book. But possibly the biggest blow to the McCann campaign is that the McCanns have had all costs - and that includes the earlier hearing costs - awarded against them. This could potentially run into tens of millions of Euros, not to mention that an official English translation of the book is probably now on the cards.

It's dfficult to tell now whether the original libel trial will go ahead. The McCann's Portuguese lawyer, Isabel Duarte, has publicly stated that it will be very difficult to appeal the overturn decision. This does not bode well for the outcome of any possible libel trial. However, immediately hard on the heels of this disasterous (for the McCanns) decision, we have the inevitable appeal for even more public funds to "help find Madeleine".

Which brings us to the next instalment. £300,000 of those publicly donated funds were already paid to Irish conman Kevin Halligen, one man operator of Oakley International. Clarence Mitchell, the former head of the Labour government’s Media Monitoring Unit, trumpeted their qualifiations for the job as "a highly successful international private detective agency."

Oakley International, however, was only formed after Madeleine was reported missing. The fees that the Fund paid to OI were squandered on Halligen's champagne lifestyle, and produced exactly zero results. The IT firm that handled the helpline even went on public record as stating that OI were not interested in any of the information received.

Yet Clarence Mitchell, through his media contacts, sold the public the picture of Oakley International being the "big boys". And contrary to even attempting to recover any of this £300,000, he has quite firmly stated that the matter of Halligen is "closed".

Or maybe not. Yesterday, Westminster Magistrates Court ordered the extradition of Halligen to the US, where he is wanted by the FBI for a £1.2million wire fraud in relation to the Trafigura scandal. Halligen now has four weeks to appeal. What other songs might the canary start to sing?


Of course, for the McCanns Fund, it may well turn out to be a swan song.

I Dreamed A Dream

From the Sun newspaper, 13 Jan 2010, by "journalist" Antonella Lazzeri (who is hardly impartial, but we'll let that slide for the moment.)

Insp Paiva told how tearful Kate told him about her dream in a phone call two months after Maddie vanished - and asked cops to search the hill she had "seen".

He said: "She gave me the impression she thought Madeleine was dead." He added police combed the area but found nothing.

Quizzed by the McCanns' lawyer Isabel Duarte, Paiva admitted Kate told him Maddie might be on the hillside as she had seen a lot of cars heading there.

He said sniffer dogs were then brought in from Britain.

Now listen carefully to the video below.

For those who are not up to speed with the characters involved, Inspector Paiva acted as intermediary between Kate and Gerry McCann and the PJ. He was therefore in a position of much personal contact with the McCanns, and it is a matter of public record that he was a witness to their "odd" behaviour on many occasions.

According to Inspector Paiva's own testimony the McCanns grew increasingly more negative in their reactions towards the activities of the police investigation, in particular after Martin Grime and his blood and cadaver dogs were drafted in.

So did Kate have a "dream", or not? Somebody must be lying - Doctor Gerry McCann or Inspector Ricardo Paiva. But who?

Who "murdered" Madeleine?

Gerry reassures us - or maybe himself - that the PJ are not looking for a "murdered" Madeleine.

The Invisible Woman

Jane Tanner claims that she left the Tapas bar and went to check on the children. She "might have seen Madeleine being abducted." But both Gerry McCann and the man he was chatting to, Jez Wilkins, claim to never have seen her on the narrow road leading up to the apartment.

"The interviewee [Jane Tanner] recalls that, around 9.10pm, Gerald McCann left the restaurant (3) to go to the apartment to see the children. Five minutes later the interviewee left, in her turn, to go to her own apartment to check on her children. She saw Gerald McCann talking to a British citizen named Jez. They got to know each other during the holiday and played tennis together. She went past them knowing that Gerald McCann had already checked the children in the apartment." [From Jane Tanner's Rogatory Interview]

So was she there, or was she not?

And who was actually carrying a "child"? Listen carefully to this video.

Geography 101

This blog is published from İçmeler, Turkey. Turkey is an independent republic straddling both Europe and Asia, governed by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey making the laws, which are then upheld by an independent judiciary.

The blog itself is kindly hosted by Blogger, originally founded by Pyra Labs in San Francisco, CA, and later bought out by Google, another American company registered in Mountain View, California. California is the most populous, and third largest, state in the USA.

But let us get back to Google. Google hosts all the blogs on various datacenters throughout the world. This particular blog just happens to be hosted on a server in a datacenter in Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany is an independent state within the EU.

Q: What do each of these countries have in common, apart from this particular blog?

A: They each have their own legal systems and jurisdiction. And none of them are bound by out-of-court settlements, or undertakings, made in the UK.

So I am afraid that sending threats to this blog, that Carter-Ruck are after it, simply cuts no ice here. This blog, and the contents, are staying put.