Divers search for Madeleine's body in remote reservoir after underworld tip-off

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A grim search for Madeleine McCann's body has been launched at an isolated reservoir.

Teams of frogmen began scouring the remote Barragem do Arade amid claims the girl's body was dumped there last May.

The private search - funded by a Portuguese lawyer - came as Portugal's most senior detective admitted that police had rushed into making Kate and Gerry McCann suspects in the case.

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Divers have been searching the Barragem do Arade in Portugal for several days after an underworld tip-off that Madeleine's body was dumped there days after she disappeared

Alipio Ribeiro, the national director of the Policia Judiciaria, said his officers had acted with "a certain hastiness" and should have assessed the evidence again before naming the couple as official suspects.

But he defended his men against claims they had acted under political pressure and had failed to investigate properly.

Last night there were calls for him to resign over the comments, as lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia revealed he was forced to fund the £1,200-a-day reservoir search himself because the police had refused.

Lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia has paid thousands of pounds for the private search at Barragem do Arade dam

The human rights lawyer said he was convinced the massive man-made lake was "the perfect hiding place" for an abductor to conceal a body.

Mr Correia, 32, ordered the search after underworld contacts told him Madeleine was raped, murdered and her body dumped within 48 hours of her disappearance on May 3.

He said he believed the abductor killed the child, weighted down her body and then threw it from a pumping tower into the murky water beneath.

His team of six divers have already found a five-metre length of knotted nylon cord, which has been handed in to Portuguese police for analysis.

The remote reservoir is surrounded by dense woodland but a dirt track cuts through it to a bridge which links the water tower to the shore.

Underworld contacts apparently claim Madeleine's body was dumped in the remote reservoir after she was raped and murdered

Mr Correia told the Mail: "I am convinced this is the place. It's not overlooked, it has easy access by car and if you threw the body from the tower the water is 55ft deep there.

"The divers have already found a cord tied in knots down there, right below the tower. I have given it to the police.

"It's logic that if you throw a body into the water then you would tie it to something to weigh it down."

The lawyer from the Portuguese island of Madeira said he would continue the search until he found proof to support his theory.

He refused to say how much he had paid to finance the trawl, but his team of six British and Portuguese divers were estimated to cost around £1,200-a-day.

They have already been searching for four days and are expected to return today, meaning the operation has already cost about £6,000.

Search coordinator Alan Wilson said the divers were only able to cover a small area in each dive because the murky water meant there was zero visibility once they descended below a few feet.

"Everything's black because there is no light," he said, adding: "The divers are searching entirely by touch, feeling in the silt for anything suspicious that shouldn't be there. It's a long, slow process."

Mr Correia said he was first told about the reservoir on May 6, three days after Madeleine vanished from Praia da Luz, some 40 miles away.

He passed the information to the police but said they ignored it, despite a May 5 witness sighting of a girl resembling Madeleine with a woman in Silves, a ten-minute drive from the lake.

The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "Kate and Gerry are grateful to anyone who feels they have important information in the search for Madeleine.

"If his search produces significant results he must, of course, share that information with both the police and our investigators."

Mr Mitchell also welcomed Mr Ribeiro's admission that police had rushed to make the McCanns suspects in September, and called for their names to be cleared.

In a radio interview, the policeman said: "Maybe a different evaluation should have been made. I have no doubts about that. There was a certain hastiness."

He pledged to correct any failings in the investigation but insisted police were still working on it, adding: "This whole job is a work of patience."

The couple learned of his comments on Saturday, as they prepared for a party to mark the third birthday of their twins, Sean and Amelie.

Madeleine, then three, disappeared last May during a family holiday in the Algarve

Mr McCann, 39, said the comments could be a much-needed "breakthrough" and added: "It is fantastic news.

"We still have a long way to go but people in Portugal need to understand what has been happening and what we have been going through.

"We know it will take the police a long time to accept what has been happening is wrong, but it is an important step towards that."

Mr and Mrs McCann, of Rothley, Leicestershire, were made suspects on September 7 but forensic evidence in the case has proved inconclusive. They have always denied any involvement.

 

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