Madeleine suspect: I’ve got no sympathy for Madeleine’s parents

Jul 16 2007 by Caroline Innes, Liverpool Daily Post

THE prime suspect in the abduction of Madeleine McCann last night revealed he has no sympathy for her parents.

As expatriate Robert Murat challenged detectives to charge him or clear his name, he defiantly declared: “All I am bothered about is myself.”

He said his life has been destroyed by allegations that he kidnapped the four-year-old and is terrified his nightmare will continue for years unless Madeleine is found alive soon.

Speaking as Madeleine’s mother, Liverpool-born Kate McCann, returned to Britain for the first time since her daughter vanished 74 days ago, Murat claimed that he believed more people were now praying for police to admit he was innocent than for Madeleine’s safe return.

Mrs McCann, who grew up in Allerton and attended Notre Dame High School, flew back to join her husband, Gerry, who is in the UK meeting child abduction experts from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) in London, to learn about criminal profiling techniques being used in the search for her daughter.

Last week, 33-year-old Murat underwent four days of intense interrogation by Portuguese police over contradictions in the alibi he gave for the night Madeleine vanished from the family’s holiday complex at Praia da Luz on the Algarve.

He is now preparing for further interrogation next week following the return of vital DNA evidence.

Speaking at his villa, Casa Liliana, 100 yards from where the toddler was snatched on May 3, the former estate agent admitted he had considered running away.

He said: “I have not thought about Gerry and Kate McCann or what they are going through because all I am bothered about is myself and what is going to happen to me, not them.

“I can’t carry on living like this, no human being could. I am an innocent man.

“I am not a paedophile nor any of the other things I have been called. I have done nothing wrong.

“I wake up with this nightmare every morning and I go to bed with it every night.

“This has had a terrible effect on my family both here in Portugal and back in Britain.

“I am the only suspect and it could take years for them to release me from the investigation. I was questioned all last week but it’s still far from certain what is going to happen.

“When anything bad happens in Portugal, people disappear, they run and they hide and now I understand why they do it.

“I have thought about it but it would not be fair on my family.

“At the start of this, people were praying for the little girl to be found but now those same people are wanting me to be cleared.

“They are thinking about me and my nightmare. The attention is on me.

“I have a four-year-old daughter but I have not been able to see her while all this has been going on.

“Certain people think I should be in prison but the police obviously cannot find enough evidence to do that, so why should I be made to live like this?”

Murat said he had tried to lead a normal life but found it almost impossible because he was under constant police surveillance.

He added: “I refuse to hide myself away from the world but my fate is in the hands of the police.

“I can see no light at the end of the tunnel.”

carolineinnes@dailypost.co.uk