"There have been exchanges between Dutch police and us," he said. "The information indicated
an area 15km from the place of the disappearance of the little child.
"It is not far from Praia da Luz. We are checking the information like we check everything in
this case for importance."
Asked if the search involved digging, he said: "If the information gives us a precise location
where we can look, we will do it."
According to De Telegraaf, the letter said Madeleine was buried "north of the road under branches
and rocks, around six to seven metres off the road" in a barren and deserted landscape.
A map came with the letter, with crosses marked on it.
The information is being taken seriously because it is thought to be similar to a letter sent
to the same newspaper last year, giving details of the rough location of the bodies of two missing Belgian girls.
Stacey Lemmens, seven, and her step-sister, Nathalie Mahy, 10, disappeared while playing outside
in Liege on June 10 last year.
Their bodies were found on June 29, a day after De Telegraaf received two maps marked with crosses
and handwritten text.
Today, a source at the newspaper said it had received two anonymous paragraphs of similar handwritten
text written in Dutch.
"We received an anonymous letter with a map in it marked with the spots where Madeleine was
buried.
"The police in Holland are taking it very seriously because it looks like the same sender as
one we received one year ago in another case of missing children.
"The letter said the girl should be found six to seven metres from a road. We have been there
but haven't seen anything but the area is so wide that you should be there with 100 searchers."
The map identified a dirt track road north of Odiaxere.
It is understood the Dutch newspaper did not publish the letter but passed it on to police authorities.
Details of the letter have also been posted on the Find Madeleine website.
Daily Mail 14 June 2007 (link)
Scrubland search for Madeleine called off
Father says Dutch paper was wrong to publish 'location' of missing girls body
Last updated at 16:17pm on 14th June 2007
The father of Madeleine McCann today condemned a Dutch newspaper as 'insensitive and cruel'
after it published a letter claiming to identify the spot where his daughter was buried.
The scrubland search for Madeleine was been called off, following no trace of the four-year-old.
Police officers searched the area after Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf published an anonymous letter, purporting
to contain the location of the girl's body.
Gerry McCann said he was upset by De Telegraaf publishing the letter, saying it should have been passed on
to Portuguese police before publication.
However, nothing was found and Portuguese police said today there were "no further plans" to revisit the area.
The letter received by the newspaper contained a claim that Madeleine's body could be found "under branches
or stones" nine miles from the Algarve resort where she disappeared from her bedroom on May 3.
Seven police officers searched the area mentioned in the letter, near the town of Odiaxere, on Wednesday.
"For now, we have no concrete plans to enter the terrain again," police chief inspector Olegario de Sousa.
A spokesman for the local GNR police, which handles day-to-day policing, said they had received no request
from the investigative police in charge of the hunt for help, or to bring sniffer dogs to the area.
Clarence Mitchell, a spokesman for Madeleine's parents, said police were continuing to examine the letter
to verify whether it was authentic.
The police have received countless leads in their investigation, including a possible sighting of Madeleine
in Morocco, but have so far made no arrests and have identified only one suspect in their case.
Mr De Sousa said a group of journalists had hired sniffer dogs to search the area on Thursday.
"These people are people who have no police training and who are walking around the bush looking for a scoop,"
he said.
Madeleine disappeared from her bed while her parents dined at a nearby restaurant in the small Praia da Luz
Algarve resort.
Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have launched a high-profile campaign to draw attention to her disappearance,
including meeting with the pope in Rome and winning support from personalities such as David Beckham.
Gerry McCann said in the diary he publishes online (www.findmadeleine.com) he was upset by De Telegraaf publishing
the letter, saying it should have been passed on to Portuguese police before publication.
"We were extremely disappointed in the publication of the anonymous letter in the Telegraaf claiming to know
where Madeleine is buried," he wrote.
The letter sent to De Telegraaf was being taken seriously as it bears similarities to a note received by the
same paper last year.
That note accurately described the location of the corpses of two missing Belgian girls.
The latest letter could have been written by a cruel hoaxer, a psychic with extraordinary powers or by Madeleine's
abductor.
In the Belgian case a man is in custody awaiting trial for the murder of Nathalie Mahy, 10, and Stacy Lemmens,
seven, but it has been suggested he may have had an accomplice who is still on the loose.
Mr McCann's close friend Paul McIntyre said: "Unless something conclusive is produced Gerry and Kate will
not give up hope. This development could be of great concern."
A Dutch police spokesman said: "We are awaiting instructions from the Portuguese and will start an inquiry
into finding the author if that is required."
MSN 14 June 2007 (link)
Disturbing letter points to Madeleine body
Thursday Jun 14 06:54 AEST
Portuguese police Wednesday said they would follow all leads on missing British girl Madeleine McCann, including
an a disturbing anonymous letter which claimed she was dead and supposedly showed where her body was hidden.
The information about McCann's death, sent to a Dutch newspaper, "has certainly come to the team of investigators,"
police spokesman Olegario de Sousa told the Lusa news agency, adding that this would be followed up "like all other leads."
"If the contents of the letter are sufficient for us to identify the area, we will check it out, as is the
case. We will not leave any leads" unchecked, he told tha Antena 1 radio station from Portimao in southern Portugal.
The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf said Wednesday it had received an anonymous letter giving details
of where to find the body of the four-year-old.
McCann vanished from the hotel room where she and her two-year-old twin siblings were sleeping in the southern
resort town of Praia da Luz on May 3 while her parents were dining at a nearby restaurant.
The daily said the letter was similar to one it received last year which had indicated with some accuracy
the site where two missing Belgian girls' bodies were discovered at the end of June.
De Telegraaf did not publish the letter, which it handed to Amsterdam police who described it as "important,"
the paper said.
The newspaper said the letter was accompanied by a map. It claimed the girl's body was "to the north of a
road, under trees and rocks about five to six metres from the road in an arid area."
Amsterdam police spokesman Gerard Crooland said copies of the letter had been sent to British and Dutch police
while Dutch investigators were analyzing the original in a laboratory.
Portugal's police chief Alipio Ribeiro meanwhile said his force was simultaneously "following up several leads,"
and "working very closely with the British police."
Meanwhile, a Norwegian woman who was holidaying in Marrakech when little "Maddie" disappeared in Portugal
on Wednesday reaffirmed sighting the child with a man in Morocco.
"I am certain it was she (Madeleine) that I saw at a service station in Marrakech," Mari Ollim, 45, who lives
in Fuengirola in southern Spain, said in an interview with the newspaper 24 Horas.
Ollim claims she saw the girl on May 9, six days after her disappearance, accompanied by a man in the shop
of the service station -- a sighting she first reported to authorities on May 22.
She described the little girl as "very sweet, blonde, with a pale face, who looked lost. Her eyes were green...
she was wearing blue pyjamas," she said.
The man with her was about 1.78 metres (five-foot eight inches) tall, thin, between 35 to 40 years old, with
short brown hair and a long face, and could have been English or German, according to Ollim.
She also claimed the girl asked the man when she could see her mother again and that he murmured to her "soon."
Ollim complained that when she returned to Spain and first heard about the girl disappearing from a resort
in southern Portugal, she had a hard time getting the attention of authorities in Spain and Britain, and finally was able
to send a written report to Portuguese police.
Kate and Gerry McCann have waged a media campaign to keep attention on their missing daughter and were in
Morocco on Monday and Tuesday.
Sky News 14 June 2007 (link)
Parents Blast Madeleine Burial Claims
Updated:22:28, Thursday June 14, 2007
The parents of Madeleine McCann have said they are deeply upset that Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf printed
claims their daughter was buried in scrubland before Portuguese police had even had a chance to investigate.
Gerry McCann said the Policia Judiciara had no time to consider the credibility of the information or consider
searching the area before the allegations were made public.
In his blog on the Find Madeleine website he wrote: "We feel strongly that this was an irresponsible piece
of journalism and even if it were true is insensitive and cruel."
He went on: "One can imagine how upsetting it is for Kate and I to hear of such claims."
Police and journalists were earlier spotted combing through an area where it is claimed the missing girl's
body may be buried.
The location, which is nine miles from where the four-year-old disappeared, was pinpointed
in a letter sent to a newspaper and passed on to Portuguese police.
Sniffer dogs have been brought in as the Policia Judiciaria consider whether to launch a full-scale search.
Police have alerted journalists to the fact that they may be "contaminating" the region, destroying eventual
