Last updated at 21:13 12 January 2008
Madeleine McCa
A lawyer claims Madeleine was killed by underworld criminalsUnderworld criminals contacted a human rights lawyer on May 6, three days after the girl vanished, with details of her alleged abduction and murder, he said.
But when Marcos Aragao Correia tried to tell police, he was ignored, he added.
The lawyer has contacted Kate and Gerry McCann's detective agency, which has begun to investigate his theory. If true, Mr Correia, 32, believes it would clear the couple of suspicion that they were involved in their daughter's disappearance.
He refused to reveal his underworld sources but said: "They indicated that Madeleine had been abducted, raped and murdered within the first two days after her abduction, and her body thrown into a lake in the Algarve."
From the description of the location that he was given, Mr Correia deduced that Madeleine's body is at the bottom of the Barragem do Arade reservoir, near Silves, 40 miles from Praia da Luz.
The lawyer, from Madeira, travelled to the Algarve to investigate the claims and visited the reservoir, 150ft deep in places, with Metodo 3 last month.
In an interview with the Portuguese magazine Lux, Mr Correia said: "It is the ideal place for somebody to get rid of a body, practically without leaving any trace."
He said Metodo 3 was "very interested" in his information.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-507782/Police-ignored-tip-Madeleine-raped-murdered--dumped-reservoir.html#ixzz1NCGyswS7
