Daily Mail Headline; says: ' A new witness in the Madeleine McCann case has told police she saw a woman surreptitiously hand over "a baby in a blanket" to a man two days after the toddler's disappearance. Private investigators hunting for four-year-old Maddie were contacted last week and the information has been given to the Portuguese police.
The witness claims she saw a woman pass on the child to a man in central Portugal, about 100 miles from the resort of Praia da Luz, where the McCanns were staying. The man and woman then left in different vehicles and in different directions.
Some details of the witness's statement will be revealed in BBC1's Panorama programme tomorrow by Francisco Marco, the head of Metodo 3, the private detective team hired by Kate and Gerry McCann. Although it has taken the person six months to come forward, Metodo 3 are taking the sighting seriously. Their investigators believe they now know the identity of the couple and have passed that information to Portuguese detectives in charge of the investigation.
The detective firm is linking the sighting to one made by the McCann's friend, Jane Tanner, on the evening of May 3 when Maddie vanished.
She said she saw a child in pink pyjamas being carried away from the Ocean Club apartments in the Algarve resort. Mr Marco tells Panorama: "We're 100 per cent sure that she is alive. We are sure she was abducted. We are very, very close to finding the kidnapper."
A police source said: "Portuguese officers are investigating a possible Madeleine sighting in central Portugal two days after she disappeared. The witness rang the Metodo 3 hotline.
"She said she had seen a woman drive up to a man waiting for her in another car and hand him over a young child wrapped in a blanket.
The man and woman then drove off in separate directions. Neither was Portuguese. The couple acted as if they were trying to hide the youngster and it seemed very odd to the witness."
Heart expert Mr McCann, 39, tells Panorama he believes his family was watched in the days before the disappearance and then targeted by Madeleine's abductor.
He says of their holiday apartment: "It's a corner flat with trees overlooking it. Somebody could be hiding there watching out of view.There was a window of opportunity and that's the regret that we'll always have. I've no doubt that Madeleine was targeted and that makes us sick to the core to think that someone was watching us and our daughter and then targeted her. I've got absolutely no doubt that they've watched me go in, come back out, and then they've thought, 'That's the window of opportunity to get in and get back out.'"
