The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (2019) s01e02 Episode Script

Person of Interest

1 [news anchor.]
We have some breaking news this morning just coming into us.
It is feared that a three-year-old British girl has been abducted in Portugal.
Local police say the girl was on holiday with her parents in the resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve.
We'll obviously bring you more details on that as we [Sandra.]
The calendar changed.
We didn't have any more 3rd of May, 4th of May, 5th of May.
We have first day Madeleine disappeared, second day, third.
We counted the days for the day that Madeleine was vanished.
[Haynes.]
We pray for children all over the world.
We pray for Kate and Gerry McCann and for all parents of abducted children.
We pray for Madeleine [Susan.]
We took an overnight flight from Toronto and we landed in Lisbon on May the 5th and I was holding Caspian, who was just five months old, and there was this old, tiny Portuguese woman and she said, "Hold onto your baby.
Hold onto your baby.
There's been an English child taken.
" And I was like, "What? Where?" She said, "Praia da Luz.
" [seagulls squawking.]
[Kelvin.]
She's a very attractive little girl and she disappears on a perfect summer holiday night, and nobody, but nobody, seems to know where she vanished.
[indistinct radio chatter.]
[Jim.]
One or two individuals represented a more significant person of interest.
[Kate.]
Certain things about his behavior just made me feel uneasy.
[Robert Hall.]
On the surface, it's so banal.
A family's on holiday, put the children to bed, literally go within sight of the apartment to have dinner.
I think the key, Ben, is for them to try and piece together what may have happened here.
If you look at the geography [Hall.]
They take it in turns to go and check on the children.
It's all so routine.
[reporter.]
All they had to do was come out of the poolside tapas bar there, come up this pavement.
Behind this white wall, it's very difficult to see what's going on inside the restaurant area, but it is interesting to note that on this little alleyway here, you can get a sight through the hedge of what's going on, so anybody watching would be able to see exactly who's coming and who's going because just here, well, this is actually the McCanns' flat It's also quite public.
It's overlooked by big apartments on the other side of the road.
Now, there are quite a few people staying here I keep coming back to the question which was there on the very first day, which is, "How?" How is it possible for some stranger to know that those children are alone, go in, remove one child without waking up the others or apparently waking up the child that they're taking? They then make their way out again.
They don't know for sure when the next person from the dinner party is going to come up and in through those doors.
They're going out into a lit street.
I guess the only conclusion you can draw is that somebody was watching that apartment, somebody planned it.
I've never been surrounded by so many journalists from UK, then they start coming from other countries, Belgium, Spain, even from the United States.
We're dancing around the world's press.
[in Portuguese.]
but only correspondents from British dailies.
-Now, lots of journalists -There really are a lot of people and everyone is asking the question, is it possible to find Maddie? [Sandra, in English.]
We were so many for that little road in front of Ocean Club [camera shutter clicking.]
that we are trying to dispute the territory.
"Oh, God, I need to put my camera.
Can you please go away? Can you please just let me do this live report now?" [in Portuguese.]
All in all, four houses have been searched Speaking to holidaymakers here, no one can quite believe what's happened.
You feel misplaced.
You're on holiday, this disaster's happened.
If you can imagine this sort of sleepy, beautiful holiday resort and suddenly there's just people everywhere.
[Jayne.]
The media circus was growing by the minute.
Every newspaper was there.
TV stations, helicopters, Sky News and everything all around.
And everybody wants their story.
We felt we were scurrying around because it just felt so under the spotlight.
So we went back to our apartment, actually, and we stayed there because you didn't know where to go, what to do.
There have been dogs, there's been helicopters, a lot of different search teams.
The police have been here again this morning.
The dogs [Neil.]
Everywhere we went, it was busy with press trying to interview us, following us around.
I remember them saying, "Just give us a piece to camera and we'll go away.
Just tell us what's going on.
" [female reporter.]
find anything? [Neil.]
There's just a sense of desperation.
-[reporter.]
No signs, no witness? -Nothing.
No one saw anything? Nothing.
[Hall.]
Clearly at that point, questions are beginning to form because you do hope as a parent that your child is going to reappear within hours.
[Hall.]
All they could do was sit in that resort and wait.
[male reporter.]
For the second consecutive night, Gerry and Kate McCann emerged to ask for help.
We would again like to appeal for any information, however small, that may lead to the safe return of Madeleine.
[male reporter.]
Tonight, everyone involved knows there can be no letup if there's a real chance that this little girl can come home safe.
[news anchor.]
Seven minutes past six, still nothing in the search for little Madeleine McCann.
[male reporter.]
there has been no official comment by the Portuguese police in terms of interviews or a press conference, and that is causing confusion here.
[in Portuguese.]
I remember on the first days, I would leave the police facilities and nobody would know me.
The information is very slow to come from the Portuguese authorities.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
Praia da Luz was crowded with journalists and TV crews.
At first, I thought, "Thank God, nobody knows me.
" But then things started to get more complicated.
[in English.]
Portuguese police don't give out information as the investigation is progressing.
For us, that's quite strange and I think it's taken [in Portuguese.]
People have the right to be informed that the police are doing something, but our judicial framework, in criminal and procedural terms, is based on secrecy.
It creates a safeguard for the investigation to find the truth.
That's the reason this principle exists.
In order not to jeopardize the investigation.
[male reporter 1.]
Police here can't rely on CCTV footage.
It's a rarity in Portugal, with the exception of petrol stations.
We're told a member of staff noticed a woman and a child matching Madeleine's description.
[male reporter 2.]
A little girl who looks similar to Madeleine was seen on CCTV holding hands with a woman just a few hours after she disappeared from the resort in Portugal.
Now, what these reports suggest is that a member of the public noticed a man with a girl answering Madeleine's description behaving in an unusual way in a supermarket in the town [Hall.]
There's a lot of speculation going on.
[reporter.]
There are reports of one witness seeing a bald man dragging a blonde girl There is talk of a bald man seen disappearing down towards the marina, but nobody can substantiate that.
[Hall.]
It was clear that we were at arm's length from official police information.
We had to just make assumptions from what we could see going on as to what their strategy was.
But all anybody really wants is some hard news of this little girl [Sandra.]
We were 24 hours a day live, knowing nothing.
[in Portuguese.]
imagine a three-year-old child in pajamas All we knew is that she was missing.
[Jon.]
Yeah, from the first day, I've got original high definition pictures.
This is the police arriving, for example, with sniffer dogs at about four or five o'clock in the afternoon on the first day.
By this point, there were quite a lot of detectives in Lagos and none of them knew what to do or were doing anything.
This is the Polícia Judiciária, [chuckling.]
which is a funny looking headquarters.
You can just make out the police badge here.
See all the detectives? Look at them, all plainclothes chaps, scruffy looking buggers.
Look at them all wondering what to do next.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
There has to be a fast response from the police.
Statistically, the first 72 hours are vital hours for police to do their work and make progress.
[helicopter thrumming.]
[Hall.]
From up here, you get a real sense of the problems faced by a small police force.
There are hundreds of small apartments and villas here, all of them have got to be checked.
More difficulties for a police force that is already stretched.
This is a time when typically, the population of the area of Praia da Luz triples from some 400,000 to 1.
5 million people.
[Ernie.]
It's difficult.
It's particularly difficult for small police departments with limited resources.
It's particularly difficult for small police departments that haven't worked these kinds of cases before.
[reporter.]
these pictures of police on the Spanish border are deeply worrying.
The officers are supposed to be checking vehicles leaving Portugal.
Instead, for 40 minutes, they sit in their own cars out of the rain.
Time is the enemy in the search for a missing child.
[male reporter.]
A van with blacked-out windows drives by and this just hours after Madeleine went missing.
[Ernie.]
The Portuguese Judicial Police were slow to implement things like checks on the highways, roadblocks, looking for the possibility of a fleeing abductor.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
A long time had passed since the child's disappearance and the time to go from Portugal to another country is within an hour, an hour and a half, you could cross the border.
There are things which are virtually impossible for us to stop.
[reporter.]
At a news conference this evening and under mounting pressure, the police finally, and perhaps belatedly, provided a description of someone they would like to interview.
We appeal to the person, Caucasian, approximately 35-40 years old of age, medium built, approximately 5 feet, 10 inches tall and was possibly carrying a child or an object that could have been taken as a child.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
At the beginning of the investigation, a police artist was used to draw what Jane Tanner described as a man she'd seen with a child in his arms.
[male reporter.]
Take the e-fit of a suspect.
One was produced and this shopkeeper was shown it by detectives.
It was an oval shape with hair on it.
Uh, no definable features, no nose, no mouth, no eyes.
Um [male reporter.]
Of course, the description is frustratingly vague, but its importance lies in the timing.
[reporter, in Portuguese.]
he described the sketch to us and his words were "an egg with hair.
" [in Portuguese.]
She describes the hair and the drawing ends up looking like an egg and it was even published, which was ridiculous.
Why would you publish something like that? [anchor.]
Thanks very much.
We're joined by a family friend of the McCanns, Jill Renwick.
Good morning.
[Jill.]
Good morning.
[anchor.]
Have you spoken directly to them in the last little while? [Jill.]
The last text I got from Kate was, "I have no faith in the Portuguese police.
Please help.
" Then we phoned everybody that we knew that would maybe have influence or would know somebody, politicians and press, just to see if they could get any kind of help there.
[Jim.]
The McCanns had connections through family with people in the media and they had engaged whoever they could to heighten awareness of this.
[man.]
Okay, quiet, please.
Okay, in your own time.
We would like to say a few words to the person who is with Madeleine or has been with Madeleine.
Madeleine is a beautiful, bright, funny, and caring little girl [Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
I think it was premature.
It puts pressure on the kidnapper, if there is a kidnapper.
The kidnapper knows that from then on, they're after him.
Please tell us where to find her or put her in a place of safety [Gerry.]
For anyone who's listening who may have been in the Algarve, there is [reporter.]
People are being asked to look out for her distinctive right eye.
[Gonçalo.]
That birthmark made her stand out from all the other children.
As a colleague of ours said, that mark was a death mark and if we make this public, it can put the child at risk.
It puts her survival at risk.
We beg you to let Madeleine come home.
[Kate.]
We need our Madeleine and Madeleine needs us.
[Phil.]
It's a very difficult choice.
You either face it or you run away and in their situation, their first thought was, "The more publicity, the more chance of getting Maddie back.
" [male reporter.]
Today is Mother's Day in Portugal.
It is customary for daughters to give their mothers flowers on this spring morning.
The context of this service is cling to what we know [Susan.]
We'd been there a few days and we spent the night in our new home there, knowing that this child had been taken, but we had no idea as to the magnitude that was waiting for us the next morning, which was our first Sunday in Luz as the new priest of the Algarve, and that was the first time I met Kate.
[Haynes.]
We arrived for the English service, which started at noon.
Then the doors opened [multiple camera shutters clicking.]
and we heard this strange sound.
-Ch-ch-ch-ch -Yeah, it was just a strange It sounded like crickets or something.
[clicking continues.]
[Haynes.]
Hundreds, ranks and ranks and ranks of cameras, taking pictures of this mum and dad who didn't know where their child was.
[in Portuguese.]
I just hope for the parents that the girl reappears, for all of us who have children.
[in Portuguese.]
There's no words to describe what we saw in her heart.
[in Portuguese.]
The local community understands the parents' anguish.
It affects all of us.
[camera shutters clicking.]
Gerry and I would just like to express our sincere gratitude and thanks to everybody, but particularly the local community here, who have offered so much support.
I couldn't have asked for more.
I just want to say thank you.
Please continue to pray for Madeleine.
She's lovely.
[shutters clicking.]
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
The searches for the child with the support of other residents and the GNR were always searches for a living child.
[reporter 1.]
I think they're aware of international media pressure [reporter 2.]
The police operation has been ramped up, though.
We're told 150 detectives have been called in, working three-day shifts here while juggling [Gonçalo.]
One of the most important things when a child disappears is to do an investigation of the neighborhood.
You see who lives there, how long they have lived there, who doesn't live there, who arrived recently.
[reporter.]
Changes in the police operation as we're passing new roadblocks, road checks that are being set up.
There are police combing a campsite [reporter, in Portuguese.]
Hundreds of apartments of all the tourist complexes of the Praia da Luz are being searched by the Judicial Police.
There is no door left unopened.
[helicopter thrumming.]
[Ernie.]
There should be an organized, scientific grid search.
Yes, you should search the derricks and the fields and bodies of water.
But that's not all you do.
At the same time, you search for that child as if she's alive, and if law enforcement is prepared and moves quickly, the likelihood of safe recovery of this child is very high.
[woman.]
It doesn't happen here, you know? You just don't hear of it and it's just such a shock and, you know, just everybody wants to help and see what they can do.
[Hall.]
On the whole, people did rally round.
Local Portuguese were turning out and they were assisting the police as much as they could.
[male reporter.]
As every hour passes, more have volunteered.
Local residents, holidaymakers.
They may lack expertise [Robert Murat.]
I actually spent most of my time with the police at the other side of the police cordon with the GNR, who were working at the site.
It felt there was an excitement in the air, something Maybe excitement's the wrong word, but there was this energy going on there.
People were incredibly positive that they would actually find her.
[in Portuguese.]
whoever has the child gives some information [Murat.]
At that time, there was a lot of press about.
Journalists flitting around in every direction, every sense, trying to discover what had happened and trying to get as much information as possible from every angle.
My mum set up a stall and this is where I'm saying the community came together.
They might not be comfortable to speak.
Um But here, they can come and they can write it down.
I'm not gonna ask their name or anything, so they might be more comfortable.
Let's see if something turns up.
Let's hope we get something.
[news fanfare plays.]
Police in Portugal confirm, Madeleine McCann was abducted from her holiday apartment.
[anchor.]
Detectives say they believe the three-year-old is still alive.
[in Portuguese.]
In the Portuguese legal system, an abduction is not just where ransom is requested.
If someone takes someone away to abuse them sexually, that is what we are working on.
If you can just show the camera over the wall, and that is the window from where it's suspected that possibly the intruder went in.
[Jon.]
We had police confirmation that they were looking into known paedophiles, British and German, who lived in the area that were on the sex offenders database that had come here and that were on an official Interpol list, which was really, straightaway, quite quite sinister.
I spoke to my news desk [Jon.]
Lori Campbell was the reporter on the ground for the Sunday Mirror and we went off into local villages, looking into known paedophiles in the area.
[Jon.]
I remember driving in and thinking, you know, it was a fairly pretty place [Jim.]
There were a large number of sex offenders who had been in the broader geographic footprint.
Is that unusual? No.
Number one, sex offenders take holidays like everybody else.
Number two, some of them will go out there for their own predatory reasons because they've got access to children, young people who are scantily clad in an environment where it's easy to blend.
[news anchor.]
Police investigating the abduction of Madeleine McCann are appealing for anyone who stayed at the resort of Praia da Luz in the fortnight before she disappeared to come forward with their holiday photographs.
We don't want photographs of scenery.
We don't want photographs simply of their family.
We want the public to look at the photographs they've taken and consider who else is there in the background.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[Jim.]
We knew where the McCanns had visited, which beaches they'd gone to, where they'd been around the pool and elsewhere, so we'd scan the photographs against those areas that we knew the McCanns had frequented.
That also allows anyone who has photographs [Jim.]
Because very often, a predator, if they are incited to offend by some contact with a child that they suddenly feel drawn to, the likelihood of them watching them for a period of time is quite strong.
We were desperate to help and we were trying to be as innovative as we could by using the technology that we had to do that.
And I would strongly encourage anyone 'cause we truly believe that somebody who has been here or lives here will have seen something or knows something suspicious about someone that will lead us to get Madeleine back safely.
[heartbeat echoing.]
[woman.]
The longer it goes on, the more concerned I become because while there's somebody out there, it preys on your mind.
You know, initially I thought that the little girl had wandered off.
Then when you actually hear that she has been abducted, you start to panic.
I haven't slept.
I've probably slept no more than two hours last night since it's happened.
 I just keep getting up and checking on her.
The locals have suspicions and a lot of people had suspicions, but you didn't know, you couldn't know.
It was very hard to know.
[Jon.]
So there was a horrible kind of climate of fear and paranoia here.
[Hall.]
runs a restaurant just a mile from the scene of the kidnapping.
Today, he told me he'd seen a man acting oddly.
Uh, he had white, dirty pants.
-He seemed a little out of place? -He was out of place, absolutely.
-We saw somebody, small hair, short hair.
-Short.
[Jim.]
You're really clutching at straws.
But, of course, sometimes in investigations, it's about luck and, actually, in the best investigations, you make your own luck.
And there were one or two individuals who represented a more significant person of interest than some others.
[keys jingling.]
[Jon.]
The very first person I bumped into was a guy here outside who I later discovered was Robert Murat, who said he was helping the family, doing some translation, was filling people in on what had happened.
He told me what time she'd gone missing, that The age, her name.
I think maybe it was him that used the name Maddie, rather than Madeleine, 'cause the parents called her Madeleine and I don't know if they also used the nickname Maddie.
[Hall.]
clutching the little pink cuddly toy that was Maddie's favorite [Murat.]
I'd been approached a lot by the press.
I remember one of the guys asking me what color were the pajamas, for example, or what she was wearing, and that's the first time I met people within the group of the McCanns.
And I did ask them that question.
I can't remember if they did give me the answer or the answer came back later.
I can't remember the exact details, but I did ask that question.
[Jon.]
A fairly engaging, but slightly strange fellow.
Slightly unusual, shall we say.
He was just there, just standing around.
It's almost like he'd decided he was gonna be the liaison officer, you know, the public liaison officer, just to talk to press and to help out.
I mean, he could have just been trying to help, like people are.
They just wanted to do their best so, you know, he lived locally, he worked locally, so he probably just wanted to help.
[in Portuguese.]
We have little information about the potential suspect.
An identity portrait has been done.
Other than that, I can't say anything else.
[in Portuguese.]
No information about this individual is being made public.
We don't know if it's a man or a woman, if they're Portuguese of if they are English, the same nationality as the parents.
Um, the appeals Everybody is pulling together, but we still need and the police still need the piece of that jigsaw that could lead them to Madeleine.
[leaves rustling.]
[Jon.]
We were all camped out in a bar in Praia da Luz and I was unwinding after, you know, a fairly hard day.
We were sort of saying, "What have you heard? Have you heard this?" And in the course of all of these conversations, Robert Murat's name was mentioned.
There was this chap who lived on his own, spent a lot of time sort of talking to journalists and, you know, finding out what was going on.
[Jon.]
Initially, I probably kept them to myself, but then Lori Campbell, a reporter from the Sunday Mirror, I think she also found the guy a little bit strange.
She asked him various questions about what his involvement was and he'd been very vague with her.
[Murat.]
At some stage, I was speaking to a couple of female journalists, one of those being Lori Campbell.
While we were having this chat, I noticed, um, a journalist or a photographer, in this case, taking photographs of me.
I actually got a bit annoyed about it.
I actually said to him, "Look, I'm not sure why you're taking photographs.
Please don't use those photographs.
" Um And, "Oh, no, it's nothing, it's nothing.
" I said, "Well, it is, because that guy is taking photographs of me and I have no idea why.
" [Jon.]
I think she'd felt there was something unusual about him from the Soham investigation in England, the Soham crime, the two young girls who'd gone missing.
[female reporter.]
The two missing girls were captured on CCTV in this sports center car park.
These are thought to be the last images of Holly and Jessica.
You're the school caretaker.
The girls, Jessica and Holly, would know you and they saw you on the front doorstep.
What went on? The girl-- I don't know the girls.
I was stood on the front doorstep, grooming my dog down.
She'd run away and come back a bit of a mess.
[Jim.]
If you look at the murders of Holly and Jessica, high profile murders of two children in the UK It doesn't help the fact that I was one of the last people to speak to them, if not the last person to speak to them.
I keep reliving that conversation and thinking perhaps something different could have been said, perhaps kept them here a little bit longer.
[Jim.]
The school caretaker, Ian Huntley, had been out and about, had been offering help, had been offering support, had been talking to the media.
And off they walked in the direction of the library over there.
He was asking questions to elicit a little bit more information for himself, which ultimately led to him becoming a suspect.
It's very frustrating, knowing that we have people that way inclined amongst us and us not knowing who they are.
-Ian Huntley, guilty of murder -[reporter.]
murdered Holly and Jessica and left their bodies to rot in a ditch, but not once did he turn to the parents in court and say, "I'm sorry.
" [anchor.]
"You showed no mercy, no regret," the judge's words as he sent him down for life.
[Jim.]
People in proximity, people who offer themselves up to provide help, support, or appeals, then of course that fits a profile, and that was mirrored in what people saw in the early behavior of Robert Murat.
There had been the Ian Huntley issue.
He came over and said, "I can be helpful.
" So, enter Robert Murat, who also said, "I can be helpful.
" [Jon.]
It was a bit odd.
You get two journalists together with a feeling in their stomach that something's not quite right, that it needs to be acted on, I think, you need to do something about it.
So she went and reported that this guy had been acting strangely.
[Murat.]
I went to dinner.
That's when I first realized that there was a car behind me.
When I left, I realized the car then was following me again.
[Murat.]
When I got before the campsite in Luz, I pulled over and the car went past.
I let him go past and I went behind him.
I then decided, because I felt I was being followed, to go to the PJ office.
I went upstairs, knocked on the door.
No one answered, no one was there.
I then rang the inspector that was in charge of the Luz operation and explained the situation.
I said, "Look, I think I'm being followed.
Um If you want to talk to me, I'm right here.
Come and talk to me if there's" You know, and he said, "No, no, no, it's nothing to do with us.
It's just journalists.
" So I got back in my car and then drove out and saw the same car that had been following me and chased it.
[car engine revs.]
Which wasn't the smartest thing to do, I don't suppose.
After getting the registration, I went back to Casa Liliana.
I rang the police inspector and told him that I was being followed and he said, "But it's not us.
" I said, "Okay.
" He said, "But why don't I come down and we'll go for a drink in Lagos?" I said, "Okay.
" So this was quite late, by this time.
So he came down with another guy and so we all went into Lagos.
I actually believe they wanted to get me pissed.
Unfortunately for them, I don't drink.
I I drank coffee.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
Robert Murat started as a translator for some witness statements that were collected in Praia da Luz.
After that, someone implicated that he could be involved in the child's disappearance.
We had a surveillance team following Robert Murat.
We tapped his phones and even his house was under surveillance.
Robert Murat's house was scanned with a radar device to attempt to determine how many people were inside the house.
[Murat.]
The next morning at seven o'clock, they called me and said that they had a breakthrough and they needed me to go and do some translating for them, which I said, "Okay, give me a few minutes.
Let me just get up," so I got up literally out of bed, put my jumper on.
"They need me now.
" Went to the gate and that's when they raided the house.
[female reporter.]
Dawn at Casa Liliana, two hundred yards from where Madeleine McCann went missing and in unmarked cars, police arrived to begin the largest search of this investigation.
Somebody said, "The police are going into Murat's house.
" And everybody just went.
Everybody ran down the road.
[in Portuguese.]
and where the commotion continues with all the journalists trying to report on the story.
The suspect is none other than an Englishman [Sandra.]
The Portuguese police was inside his house, excavating, and the attentions were not longer on the flat from where Madeleine was vanished, but all the journalists went to Robert Murat house.
[in Portuguese.]
The police were always aware of Robert Murat as the suspect who was behind Madeleine's disappearance [male reporter.]
They have been here since seven a.
m.
A tent sits on the drive and beneath it, forensic officers work.
-[man.]
Who lives there? -[Jenny.]
Here? -Yes.
-Me.
[man.]
Do you know why they're searching? Why are they searching? [Jenny.]
I don't know, no.
I can't say anything.
I've been at the scene quite a lot over the weekend, on a Saturday and Sunday, um, and certain things about his behavior just made me feel uneasy so You know, an awful lot of journalists and that's our job, to notice stuff and to, you know, put two and two together and people were beginning to put two and two together.
Um, he has a wife and a child back in the UK, in the north of England, and he's going through a divorce at the moment.
He was just too close to the investigation.
He was spending far too much time talking to the media [Sandra.]
I saw Robert Murat there the first or the second day trying to help, like we were trying to help.
To give you some indication as to how close the two properties are, the house Madeleine was taken from is at the end of this street.
You only have to move around 200 yards up it to find the house that the police are now searching down amongst the greenery with the green tarpaulin.
[Sandra.]
Maybe I'm too innocent and I didn't thought about that possibility, but maybe he's the guy.
[Robert Murat.]
They came in, they went into the house.
My bedroom, they took everything, and and then stuck me in a police car and off I went to the PJ headquarters in Portimão.
[Murat.]
I remember being scared.
That I do remember 'cause I had no idea.
Because I felt, "Be honest, be truthful, get over this.
They'll carry on with their thing, they'll find out that you have nothing to do with it.
" But they didn't want that.
It wasn't what they wanted.
Um, they wanted me to confess.
[Murat.]
There was a couple of PJ officers, one typing and one asking questions, and it was a long process because the typing was two-fingered typing.
None had skills of a typist.
They didn't give me any food, they didn't give me any water.
Um, nothing.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
On that day, I was at the police headquarters.
A normal investigation was carried out.
[no audible dialogue.]
[Murat.]
Multiple people came shooting in and it felt quite threatening and telling me that I was guilty and my time was up and the more I said I hadn't done, the more they said I lied and was lying and I had done it.
I hadn't got a clue what was going on.
Uh, I was a mess.
I had no I literally wasn't functioning.
[echoing thud.]
I actually felt I was being set up.
I felt like they were gonna do anything and everything to um make it me.
[male reporter.]
It was the middle of the night when they left.
Disappearing into the darkness was Robert Murat.
A 33-year-old male living in the area of the events was named as a formal suspect.
[Olegário.]
This male was interrogated as such, but no evidence was collected in order to ground his arrest and subsequent judicial interrogation.
[Jon.]
Being an arguido in Portugal is an unusual word.
It doesn't mean you're charged.
It means that you're you're more than just a suspect.
You actually become officially a suspect.
It's quite a serious thing for the police to do that.
[Murat.]
You'll have to ask the PJ.
[reporter.]
It seems it's going to be the end -Sir, what do you think? -You'll have to ask the PJ that.
-Are you happy? -You'd have to ask the PJ that question.
[reporter.]
But they don't talk to us.
-There's a reason for that.
-Sorry? -There's a reason for that.
-What do you think about this operation? -[reporter.]
What is your opinion? -[man.]
Robert? I think just because he was released didn't necessarily mean that he wasn't involved and didn't mean that any of the people around him weren't involved.
It meant that there wasn't enough evidence to charge him.
[Jon.]
For me, it almost, in some ways, justified my job that the initial suspicions that I had about this man were being taken seriously and actually could lead to potentially a conviction.
It was a very tangible, very interesting development in the case.
[helicopter thrumming.]
[male reporter.]
Over the last 36 hours, the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance appears, for the first time, to have found some focus.
[Robert Hall.]
We're all amateur detectives in a way under those circumstances and we all sit there trying to piece together what we know and make something of it.
[camera shutters clicking.]
There's a fair chance, I think a lot of people, "Well, this could be the breakthrough.
Here it is.
It all fits.
" So this seems to be a big development, seems to be things moving quickly, but we don't know where this will lead.
We just know that tonight, we do have a named formal suspect and he lived in this house.
[reporter.]
Leaving a property still behind police tape, Jenny Murat, a "Find Madeleine" poster in the back window, her son at the center of the inquiry.
[in Portuguese.]
I haven't seen him more than once.
I got the feeling he wasn't totally normal.
His mother says that they, on that night the kid disappeared, they were both in the house together all night, so I just hope it's all solved pretty soon, his name is cleared and, you know, I think it's disgusting that his name's been mentioned without pure evidence.
[Murat.]
I can remember just pacing around the house and round in circles and not being able to stop and going round and round and round and round and round and Just-- I can remember just not being able to put two lines together, two words together, two anything together.
Putting myself in a room in the dark and crawling up on a chair and just wanting to die.
Just absolutely um hell on Earth.
[Kelvin.]
A tabloid take on news is not one that necessarily stimulates the intellect.
It stimulates the emotion.
You're stimulated from the moment of the headline or the moment of the lead of the telecast, that when you read something, you say, "My God!" He turns out to be an estate agent.
Guilty! He turns out to have a bit of a dodgy eye.
Guilty! He turns out to want to be helpful.
Double guilty.
You have to put the whole Robert Murat case, you know, that he's a slightly unusual looking fella and he had an ex-wife back in England and a daughter the same age as Maddie, which was even more strange.
[male reporter.]
Flying over the apartments from the east, we travel down the road and after a couple of seconds, the villa where Robert Murat lives quickly comes into view.
This was where police collected the man they describe as a formal suspect early yesterday morning.
[Jon.]
The fact that there's almost line of sight from his house to the apartment, there was a feeling that maybe the family had been watched for a few days to see what their movements were.
'Cause it does feel like that this man is the center of this inquiry and yet he hasn't been charged, he hasn't even been arrested and all of this, the searches and everything, could come to nothing.
[male reporter.]
We've learned that police also searched this residential building where Mr.
Murat's brother-in-law, Paolo Miguel, lives.
Detectives also searched this tidy, well-kept hotel in the village of Burgau.
It's owned by Mr.
Murat's cousin, Sally Eveleigh.
[Kelvin.]
The Portuguese police, by the way, are briefing the old journos left, right, and center because they actually want this to turn out to be somebody like him because that would then clear the air for the tourism in the area.
[female reporter.]
But did you know Robert Murat? I'm not going to comment on that.
[male reporter.]
And the regional government's president says the events of the last two weeks are putting off those who have come here to relax.
I would like to ask all the journalists, please remember that you could be the one in the house in holiday.
The last thing you need was the idea that there could be a Portuguese pedo-slash-murderer around.
[helicopter thrumming.]
[in Portuguese.]
As far as we know, from inside the house, the crime scene investigators took different types of tech equipment [reporter, in Portuguese.]
They followed this lead, apparently of a paedophile with no criminal record, an English paedophile residing here in Praia da Luz.
Also, we didn't see the images, but agents were seen holding video cassettes.
We're probably talking about a sexual motive, about a paedophile [news fanfare playing.]
[in Portuguese.]
Good afternoon.
A man was made arguido in the case of the disappearance of Madeleine.
Robert Murat, he's 35 years old I remember when I find out that Robert has been interviewed by police and I was like, "Whoa! This is the guy I'm doing a website for.
" I mean, I know him, I know him.
[Sergey.]
I'd been working day and night so I didn't pay much attention at the very beginning, thinking, "Is it true or not?" Because I got my own things to take care of.
To me, he was just a normal guy that lived in Praia da Luz with his mum.
Um What harm can he do to somebody? [Sergey.]
At that time, I was 22 years old and I already had a beginning of my own business, my own computer company.
I was introduced to Robert to use my services to create a property website.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
Sergey Malinka was, I believe, also mentioned by someone and then as we attempted to collect more information, he also had a connection to Robert Murat, so this raised suspicions.
[Sergey.]
A friend said that Sky News would like to interview you.
I don't really know him that personally.
Uh, I did some work for him as a website and we have a strictly customer relationship.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
  We were in the process of investigating someone and then we hear that he went to speak to journalists.
That's when we approached him.
[Sergey.]
They took my phone, my car keys, and they put me into a black car.
When I asked them, "Who you are, guys? What's happening?" They said, "We're police," but they never showed any identification.
Firstly, I thought maybe some sort of speeding ticket or maybe I parked in a handicap area, you know, something stupid and silly, or maybe I-- I copied some sort of a software that I shouldn't have done or, you know, anything out of those sci-fi movies that you always watch and you never believe happens.
[Sergey.]
For the first two or three hours, I was sitting in a car in Lagos.
Then afterwards, I think they drove me to one of the petrol stations on the motorway and any questions that I asked were ignored.
It was scary.
It was like life-threatening scary.
Basically, I was stripped of all the rights of making a phone call or asking any questions.
They had just basically been holding me in a car.
And I find out that they waited for the warrant from the judge to search my apartment.
[in Portuguese.]
There's little information available about Sergey Malinka, about who this man is.
What I can say at this point of the investigations is that this is a man in his 30's [Sergey.]
I was trying to tell them that this is not my equipment.
This equipment belongs to somebody else.
I'm only fixing it temporarily.
[reporter.]
The man in the yellow shirt is [Sergey.]
I remember quite clearly when they were packing things into their car.
I saw, like, maybe 150-200 people sitting everywhere with the cameras.
You can never be prepared for a thing like that in your life.
"What do I do? How do I act? Where do I look? Should I hide? Or should I not hide?" [car horn honks.]
When you are in a situation when you can't control and you're stripped of all the basic rights and it's just-- it's worse than death, I think.
[helicopter whirring.]
[male reporter.]
As this latest episode in the inquiry unfolded, there was a reminder of its purpose: Madeleine's mother and father out walking.
This investigation is happening all around them.
[Gerry.]
And as far as we are concerned, until there is concrete evidence to the contrary, we believe that Madeleine is safe and being looked after and that is how we can continue in our efforts.
[Sergey.]
Don't laugh, yeah? I'm like a sandwich of pillows and nets so I wouldn't escape and open something while my parents were busy.
In the year of '98, Russia had a bit of a problem, I think it was default when the dollar went sky high.
There's my parents when they married.
So a lot of people lost their possessions and their businesses.
My parents were, unfortunately, the victims of this, so they looked for Europe for a better life.
[Sergey.]
All my life when I was in Russia, I really wanted to achieve something.
So my focus here in Portugal was to you know, become a successful person.
[male reporter.]
Last night, police arrived at 22-year-old Sergey Malinka's flat.
It's claimed he designed a website for the British man who's a suspect in the case, Robert Murat.
[sighs.]
The news were releasing all sorts of wonderful things and untruthful statements and, you know, it was just crazy.
I've been called paedophile, I've been called a sexual predator, I've been called the Russian Mafia, a human trafficker.
My mother was taken for questioning.
That was one of the most difficult moments of all that because my mum didn't speak, or hardly spoke in Portuguese and very bad English, so I couldn't imagine what she would have gone through in that room.
I saw my father, he was all pale and my mum was crying on the sofa, saying, you know, "What's happening? Why are we treated this way? Is it because we're Russians?" I said, "It's nothing to do with that.
" [Sergey.]
They asked me a lot of questions about Robert.
That was quite strange to me that they asked a lot of questions about him, not about me.
I explained them how I got involved with Robert.
So there's nothing I knew, any secrets or any-- sort of, his personal life.
There's nothing I could have told them.
[inaudible.]
[Sergey.]
The more tired I got in that room, the more aggressive and pushy the questions were from the police, from the officers.
Eventually, things got a bit ugly and he said, "I will put this little girl on your back," or something and he slapped me on my back with his palm while saying that.
The last detective who walked into the room was Mr.
Amaral.
He looked like he was out of breath or something and I was sitting on the chair so he said, "On your feet.
" He kicked the chair.
They asked me, "Do you know anything about this phone call that Robert made to you at midnight?" I think it was 23:30.
And I said no because I never recall this phone call.
The police had reasonably good suspicions that there was some something strange, some collusion happening at 11:30 or 11:40 on the night that Maddie went missing.
The police basically, um, were [stammers.]
looking that I had made a phone call to Sergey, um, and I've never denied making a phone call to Sergey.
I just cannot remember it.
[Murat.]
There was no no chat between two people.
I don't know if it was a pocket dial or not, which it could well have been.
Um I may have rang I don't know.
I honestly have no recollection of that call.
[Jon.]
The fact that these phone calls were made late at night to me was very suspicious.
[Sergey.]
It was, I think, a few hours that we'd been going through the same thing with different inspectors.
So I think each one of them had their own conclusions, so to speak, when they didn't get anything different out of me.
In the end, they just said, "That's it and you're free to go.
" [tires squealing.]
[in Portuguese.]
The Correio da Manhã newspaper reports that the computers apprehended from Sergey Malinka had their hard drives erased.
[interviewer.]
The material that they confiscated, they took computers and 27 CD-ROMs.
[Sergey.]
Mm-hmm.
[interviewer.]
And, now, there were allegations made about what was on those CD-ROMs.
[Sergey.]
Mm-hmm.
[interviewer.]
And I wonder if you're able to talk about that.
No.
I'd rather not.
[interviewer.]
Okay.
'Cause I think I think What I think is there's an opportunity for you to go-- Yeah, but there's no way I can prove because they confiscated not just my hard drive, it was a lot of CDs from the clients and from uh-- And the things-- They say they find pornography there.
Show me one computer in the world that doesn't have some sort of cookie or something from a porn site.
Um, I'm not saying that I didn't have it or I did have it.
What I'm saying is they should have defined which computer had it and which didn't because it's just a statement.
"There was something there.
" [camera shutters clicking.]
In general terms, in terms of suspects, and I know there's been a lot of media response to that.
I would say, as a family and I hope that everyone else here treats all suspects the way that we would hope to be treated and that they are presumed innocent until someone is charged, arrested, and convicted of any criminal offense.
Thank you.
[indistinct chatter.]
[theme music playing.]

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