An ex-military cop claims to have solved the Madeleine McCann case, saying she died on the evening of 2nd May 2007 after falling off a sofa and that her parents hid the body to cover it up.
Bernt Stellander, 56, made the claims at a press conference in Lagos, Portugal, just a few miles from the Ocean Club apartment where Maddie vanished on the evening of May 3rd, 2007.
The author, who says he is an ex-military police officer from Norway, has now turned the “evidence” he claims to have found into a book, which is now available in Portugal.
Portuguese publisher Modocromia announced last month that it was planning to launch the near-800-page book with ‘photos and maps’. The Lisbon-based firm said at the time that it was keeping the name of the author under wraps until the book came out and was only referring to him as a ‘foreign detective’.
But he did give a bizarre interview ahead of the book’s official presentation, wearing sunglasses and a black hoodie with the word ‘Truth’ emblazoned on the front. He told host Dietmar Goetz on a show called Nightfly Private Talks Only broadcast on YouTube that his discoveries during a years-long investigation were a ‘game changer’.
Stellander, who has now revealed his name, claims that Maddie, under the influence of sleeping pills, fell off the sofa, hit her head and died while her parents were at a restaurant eating.
He claims that Gerry and Kate McCann then hid Maddie’s body in the village cemetery and faked a kidnapping before burying their child in the mountains near Praia da Luz three weeks later.
Stellander also reportedly claims that the seven friends of the McCanns who were on holiday with them are all in cahoots with them and that a nanny from the Ocean Club who said she was on the beach with Maddie and other kids on 3rd May 2007 is lying.
The author’s claims do not stop there.
He also reportedly claims that British investigators know the truth but are also covering up for the McCanns.
His claims are reportedly based on interviews given by the McCanns and their friends, in which he believes that Kate and Gerry McCann give the game away in conflicting statements.
Stellander also claims that their friends contradicted each other in interviews.
The investigator says that wildlife cameras in the mountains near Praia da Luz support his suspicions that Gerry and Kate McCann buried their daughter near their jogging route.
Asked why Maddie’s parents would cover up a tragic accident, why so many of those involved would go along with it all, and why Scotland Yard would cover up any crimes, he reportedly answered: “We can only speculate about that.”
Stellander claims he has written, anonymously, to German prosecutors involved in the Christian Brueckner investigations but has not received a reply.
He reportedly believes that Maddie’s parents or their friends will quickly cave “under the pressure of the new evidence”.
He also reportedly says in his book where Maddie’s body is buried, approximately. He has reportedly already dug there but has not yet found anything.
Madeleine McCann’s parents previously lost a legal battle over a hurtful book, ‘Maddie: The Truth of the Lie,’ by controversial former PJ chief Amaral.
The couple took him to the European Court of Human Rights after years of litigation in his homeland over the book, which accused them of covering up Madeleine McCann’s ‘accidental’ death.
The court upheld a freedom-of-expression decision by Portugal’s Supreme Court in September 2022.
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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
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