Couriermail.com.au
Pendiente de traducción
Marnie O'Neill
August 09, 2009 12:00am
A SYDNEY woman has told NSW police she knows the identity of a woman sought by British investigators over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
The woman walked into a Sydney police station on Friday afternoon and made a formal statement to detectives, a police spokesman said.
She not only provided what she believed was the name of the woman, who lives interstate, possibly in Melbourne, but also a photograph of her.
"Police have forwarded the information to (both) the Australian Federal Police and the private investigators attached to the McCann team," a police spokesman said.
A police source said the photograph bore an "uncanny resemblance" to a police artist's impression released to Australian media by the McCann team last week.
The image is based on the eyewitness accounts of two bar-hopping British men who encountered the woman in Barcelona, 72 hours after Madeleine was snatched from a Portuguese resort on May 3, 2007.
One of them approached her and she asked him in an Australian accent: "Are you here to deliver my new daughter? Have you got her? Have you got the child?"
The new Sydney witness is one of "hundreds" of Australians who claim to have seen the mystery brunette. She is said to speak "excellent Spanish, possibly Catalan".
McCann chief investigator Dave Edgar said his team would fly to Australia to analyse all new information, including several names that had been passed on to them.
The owner of Sydney's most famous Spanish restaurant Capitan Torres, Manuel Vilarino, is convinced she visited his establishment "two or three months ago".
When the image was shown around Sydney's Spanish Quarter last week, most people drew a blank.
Mr Vilarino, however, felt a "punch in the gut", all but gasping out loud when he saw her face.
"The moment you showed me this picture, I felt a jolt of recognition," he said.
"I believe she came to the restaurant about two or three months ago with a party of three or four, including at least one man.
"I remember she was very pleasant and very well presented, wearing cream or white-coloured tailored trousers."
Mr Vilarino said the woman, who spoke to him in Spanish, did not dine at the restaurant but had stopped by in the afternoon to ask what their trading hours were.
"She said to me: 'We arrived only yesterday. I want to show (my companions) the Spanish Quarter.' She wanted to know our trading hours."
Mr Vilarino said the more he looked at the image, the more convinced he felt it was the same woman.
"It's a very strange feeling, hard to describe but I feel in my heart I feel that this is the woman who came here that day," he said.
Mr Vilarino has managed Capitan Torres for 33 years.
The restaurateur is well known within the Spanish communities of Sydney and Melbourne.
August 09, 2009 12:00am
A SYDNEY woman has told NSW police she knows the identity of a woman sought by British investigators over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.The woman walked into a Sydney police station on Friday afternoon and made a formal statement to detectives, a police spokesman said.
She not only provided what she believed was the name of the woman, who lives interstate, possibly in Melbourne, but also a photograph of her.
"Police have forwarded the information to (both) the Australian Federal Police and the private investigators attached to the McCann team," a police spokesman said.
A police source said the photograph bore an "uncanny resemblance" to a police artist's impression released to Australian media by the McCann team last week.
The image is based on the eyewitness accounts of two bar-hopping British men who encountered the woman in Barcelona, 72 hours after Madeleine was snatched from a Portuguese resort on May 3, 2007.
One of them approached her and she asked him in an Australian accent: "Are you here to deliver my new daughter? Have you got her? Have you got the child?"
The new Sydney witness is one of "hundreds" of Australians who claim to have seen the mystery brunette. She is said to speak "excellent Spanish, possibly Catalan".
McCann chief investigator Dave Edgar said his team would fly to Australia to analyse all new information, including several names that had been passed on to them.
The owner of Sydney's most famous Spanish restaurant Capitan Torres, Manuel Vilarino, is convinced she visited his establishment "two or three months ago".
When the image was shown around Sydney's Spanish Quarter last week, most people drew a blank.
Mr Vilarino, however, felt a "punch in the gut", all but gasping out loud when he saw her face.
"The moment you showed me this picture, I felt a jolt of recognition," he said.
"I believe she came to the restaurant about two or three months ago with a party of three or four, including at least one man.
"I remember she was very pleasant and very well presented, wearing cream or white-coloured tailored trousers."
Mr Vilarino said the woman, who spoke to him in Spanish, did not dine at the restaurant but had stopped by in the afternoon to ask what their trading hours were.
"She said to me: 'We arrived only yesterday. I want to show (my companions) the Spanish Quarter.' She wanted to know our trading hours."
Mr Vilarino said the more he looked at the image, the more convinced he felt it was the same woman.
"It's a very strange feeling, hard to describe but I feel in my heart I feel that this is the woman who came here that day," he said.
Mr Vilarino has managed Capitan Torres for 33 years.
The restaurateur is well known within the Spanish communities of Sydney and Melbourne.
