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- Title: VARIOUS/ FILE: One year on from the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
- Date: 2nd May 2008
- Summary: (EUR) MADRID, SPAIN (APRIL 21, 2008) (REUTERS) SPANISH JOURNALIST NACHO ABAD TALKING TO REUTERS REPORTER CLOSE UP OF ABAD (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SPANISH JOURNALIST NACHO ABAD SAYING: "Its brought me stress, hiding well the copies of the declarations I have, because I am worried about what might happen to them, they are well hidden, in a safe place. And I am worried about them never finding out what happened to Madeleine because, after all, what any journalist wants, or what any spectator wants, is for this story to have a closure, for it to have an ending, to know where Madeleine is at, if she is alive or, if somebody killed her, who did it and have them pay for it." ABAD DURING INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SPANISH JOURNALIST NACHO ABAD SAYING: "In my opinion, it is not important who provides the information, what it's relevant is whether it is truthful. In this case there is a lot of untruthful information, a lot speculation. This has caused an unfavourable environment even for police that have been branded as bad investigators who didn't present the bedroom immediately and has also affected the McCanns who- It's happen to me that people have stopped me on the street to ask whether they are the assassins-. And there is a generalised opinion and generalised criteria based on false information, and the idea here is to gather the correct information so that one can create an opinion. This is what we are trying to do. We are not trying to injure the Police or the McCanns."
- Embargoed: 17th May 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
- Reuters ID: LVABWV7DL76VPJAG75S2Y7F9W50P
- Story Text: As the one year anniversary of the day British four year old Madeleine McCann disappeared approaches, the Spanish journalist who obtained controversial transcripts of the little girl's parents interviews with police, says he will never reveal his source. Intense media coverage of the case has sparked lawsuits and a heated debate in the UK over whether Kate and Gerry McCann are to blame for their daughter's disappearance.
Spanish journalist Nacho Abad, who obtained copies of investigator's interviews of Madeleine McCann's parents told Reuters that he will never reveal his source.
"In my opinion, it is not important who provides the information, what it's relevant is whether it is truthful," Abad told Reuters in an interview.
"Its brought me stress, hiding well the copies of the declarations I have, because I am worried about what might happen to them, they are well hidden, in a safe place," he added.
Abad, who works for Spanish talk show 'Ana Rosa Quintana' got access to transcripts of Kate and Gerry McCann's statements to investigators on May 4 last year, a day after their daughters dissapearance.
According to Abad, the transcripts show Kate McCann told police about a conversation she had with Madeleine on the morning she vanished.
"While we were having breakfast, Madeleine said: 'Mum, why didn't you come when we were crying last night?'," she said, according to Abad.
He said she added: "Gerry and I talked about it for several minutes and decided to watch over the children more carefully at night."
Abad, who has closely followed the McCann case said he worked very hard to access the documents as information about the case has been restricted by Portuguese police.
"This has caused an unfavourable environment even for police that have been branded as bad investigators," he said.
"And there is a generalised opinion and generalised criteria based on false information, and the idea here is to gather the correct information so that one can create an opinion. This is what we are trying to do. We are not trying to injure the police or the Mccanns."
Abad plans to continue pursuing confidential information about the case.
"I am worried about them never finding out what happened to Madeleine because, after all, what any journalist wants, or what any spectator wants, is for this story to have a closure, for it to have an ending, to know where Madeleine is at, if she is alive or, if somebody killed her, who did it and have them pay for it."
Madeleine McCann from Rothley, in Leicestershire, England disappeared on May 3, 2007 during a holiday with her parents in the Algarve region of southern Portugal.
Thus far, no one has been charged but Kate and Gerry McCann, along with a British man living in Praia da Luz, have been declared official suspects.
Portuguese Justice Minister Alberto Costa of Portugal said last February that the police investigation into the disappearance was nearing its conclusion, but that hasn't stopped intense British media in the case.
Some have queried just why the Madeleine McCann case has attracted such phenomenal press interest, when there are hundreds more other cases of missing children.
Media analyst, Dr. Richard Howells, Director of Kings College London's Centre for Cultural, Media and Creative Research said Britain explains his theory.
"Should we take into account that they are white, middle class professional with a beautiful daughter? How would this story have been covered had the disappeared child been one of an ethnic minority single parent? Would we have even known about it?" he told Reuters.
"Harsh questions which we need to ask ourselves. We must also take into account that they have had a very very good publicity machine," he said.
The McCanns hired former BBC journalist Clarence Mitchell to spearhead their media campaign, and Howells said they have an innate sense of what will play well in the media and what won't.
When Madeleine first went missing Kate and Gerry were portrayed as professional, dignified victims, who maintained a dignified presence during their suffering.
However, Howells said that once they were declared official suspects, the press had free reign to turn on them and accuse them of bad parenting.
He says this drama of two "acts", as he describes it, has a tantalising third act, which has yet to come. It's almost as if the media are covering the case like a work of fiction.
"It's like a classic Hitchcock film, or a classic who-dunnit, which is leaving you just on the cusp of that resolution and with that lack of resolution everybody has their own theories," Howells said.
"Everybody is a detective and everybody is a moral judge and you put those two together and this thing is still being talked about in very living room, in front of every telly (television) in every pub, debated in every newspaper with people taking sides, as those they were involved,"
he said. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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