The Blind Men and Madeleine

 

Portugal’s most senior law officer, attorney general, Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro said the worldwide campaign set up to find Madeleine would have turned her into a liability if she had been abducted.

“If she was kidnapped, it is likely her abductor has already killed her,” he said. “All this publicity and with the whole world having seen Madeleine’s photo … means there is a greater chance of the girl being dead than alive.”

Mr Pinto Monteiro is laying the blame for the ‘probable death’ of their daughter firmly and squarely at the door of the Mccanns.

This is not the first time that a member of the  Portuguese judicial system has suggested that the parents should not have issued a photo of Madeleine and the mark in her eye, following her abduction. One wonders then how one goes about finding a missing child if no one knows what the child looks like? Do the Portuguese police rely on people using their psychic powers to guess at what the child looks like? 

Imagine being a parent in a foreign country and upon finding your daughter missing the police refuse to issue a photo of her, or a description of what she was wearing, or photo-fits of possible suspects seen around the apartment at the time. Add to that the secrecy laws that mean you cannot speak about the events that night and you might feel you were in some Kafkaesque nightmare.

I ask in all sincerity, who does the non- issue of photos of Madeleine and the possible suspects really protect? Is it not the abductor?: If we don’t know what the child looks like, or what the possible suspect looks like…does that not protect the abductor?

Below is the sketch of a possible suspect which the police refused to release, but which was shown to residents of Praia da Luz:

Mr Russel who drew this after seeing the original, described it as looking like “an egg with a side parting“.  I ask again, who does this sketch really protect; Madeleine or the abductor?

The comment by Mr Pinto Monteiro is disingenuous in light of the fact that the Portuguese police and media have made it clear that they believe the parents killed Madeleine on the 3rd of May in the apartment, hid her body and moved it 25 days later in their hire car. His claims and insistence that ‘ all lines of inquiry are still open’  has become the Portuguese police equivalent of Muzak.

If the police are convinced that the parents killed Madeleine, then why bother issuing brutal, inane comments about publicity leading to her ‘probable’ death at the hands of a kidnapper? The obvious answer is that the Portuguese police are busy Teflon-coating themselves for when they finally have to face the world and say that they failed to find Madeleine or to charge anyone with her abduction.

In their eyes they are blameless:

1. The parents left Madeleine alone – so it is their fault if something happened to her, not ours.

2. The parents initiated the publicity campaign and as a result a kidnapper would have killed her, so it’s their fault not ours.

3. The parents killed her and are being aided and abetted by their friends, Gordon Brown and wealthy supporters, so what can we do faced with such opposition? It’s not our fault.

4. We have run out of resources…it’s not our fault.

5. The parents and friends refuse to answer more questions…it’s not our fault

6. The Portuguese prosecutor refuses to authorise and send the questions..it’s not our fault.

and on and on…
 

The Portuguese attitude to the Madeleine and particularly their persistent and myopic view that her parents killed her and their refuasl to look beyond that, reminds me of the Buddhist tale of The Blind Men and an Elephant

 Buddha tells the story of a raja who had six blind men gathered together to examine the elephant.

“When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, ‘Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?’

They assert the elephant is like a pot (head), winnowing basket (ear), ploughshare (tusk), plough (trunk), granary (body), pillar (foot), mortar (back), pestle (tail), or brush (tip of the tail).

The men come to blows, which delights the raja. The raja says:

O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim

For preacher and monk the honored name!

For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.

Such folk see only one side of a thing.