By: CECÍLIA PIRES
DIVERS COMMISSIONED by a Madeira-based lawyer have been searching for Madeleine McCann in waters at the Arade Dam, near Silves.
Operations began on Thursday (January 31), stopped temporarily on Monday and Tuesday, restarting on Wednesday after reviewing the search options.
Martin Salkous, from Time Dive, the diving company from Lagos that is carrying out the search, told The Resident that they “decided to take a short break of a couple of days to better analyse the area and have more search options”.
“We have been searching for four days but the water was very dark. After the last few days’ rain, conditions are not the best for this kind of search,” he said referring to the rainy weather that marked the weekend.
He added that since diving started, they have only found a rope and some wood, one of the reasons their client, Marcos Aragão, wanted to widen the search area.
The lawyer from Madeira said he commissioned the operation after being tipped off about the location shortly after Madeleine went missing.
He said he contacted detectives from Metodo 3, the private investigators hired by Gerry and Kate McCann, who are reported to have said they consider the information is credible.
Police aware
Marcos Aragão said he had informed the Portuguese Polícia Judiciária about the information, although “they have done nothing”, he told Portuguese daily newspaper Correio da Manhã.
The Madeira-based lawyer said to that newspaper that he received the information about the whereabouts of Madeleine on May 6 and believes the little girl had been dumped in a “deserted lake, with murky waters and heavily vegetated banks” and that a “small sand beach would be another characteristic” to better find the place.
The lawyer added he took several months to find a location fitting the description, eventually finding it in December, when he travelled to the Algarve. Marcos Aragão has said in several interviews that he will not give up until everywhere in the area is searched.
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