Detectives study Madeleine report

PRIVATE detectives working for Madeleine McCann’s parents were yesterday studying a report that she was spotted at the same place and time as the partner of an official suspect in her disappearance.

A tourist reportedly saw a little girl fitting the blonde youngster’s description and Robert Murat’s girlfriend, Michaela Walczuch, in Morocco on June 15, 43 days after the four-year-old went missing. The child was being dragged across the street in the north-eastern town of Zaio by an Arab woman, said Isabel Gonzalez, 60.

She told reporters: “I have always been convinced the girl I saw in Morocco was Madeleine. Now I am equally sure the blonde woman I saw that day in the town was Murat’s girlfriend.”

A number of reported sightings of Madeleine have so far proved fruitless and her parents are treating the latest with caution.

Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “As with all other sightings, we simply will not comment on the detail.

“However, all the relevant information is with our investigators and they continue to work thoroughly on every sighting that comes in.

“We have also liaised with Portuguese police in recent days.”

Ms Walczuch, 34, strenuously denies any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance and has reportedly described such claims as “ridiculous”. Mr Murat also insists he is innocent.

Ms Walczuch has already been forced to deny this week that she was with Madeleine two days after the child’s apparent abduction in Portugal.

It is reported that a new witness claimed to have seen her with the missing girl in the country’s central coastal area on May 5.