Can face software help? | "Madeleine" in Morocco picture gallery

A girl photographed in Morocco is not Madeleine McCann but the daughter of a local family who have lived in the area for several generations, according to reports.

Facial recognition experts had been called in to try and see if the grainy picture, taken by a Spanish tourist at the end of August, was in fact the missing British girl.

The picture shows a light-skinned, blonde-haired girl being carried in a sling on a Moroccan woman’s back near the town of Zinat. It was the fourth reported sighting of a girl fitting Madeleine’s description in Morocco since she disappeared on May 3 but the first published picture.

The girl in the picture has been found by the Evening Standard living in a farm in a village in the Rif mountains in northern Morocco. Her true identity, they say, is Bushra Binhisa.

Speaking through an interpreter, Hamid Binhisa, an olive farmer with a smallholding, told the London newspaper: "Bushra is my little girl. She is not Madeleine. I do feel sorry for her parents, I hope they find Madeleine. But Bushra is definitely my daughter."

Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ spokesman, is said to have rung Kate and Gerry at their home in Rothley in Leicestershire to inform them that the girl in the picture was not their daughter.

He said: “Clearly, if these reports that the girl in the photograph isn’t Madeleine are true, it is disappointing news.

“This is why Gerry and Kate refused to comment on individual sightings and why I was advising caution overnight.

“Clearly, the search for Madeleine will continue and I would appeal for everyone to refocus their efforts to achieve her safe return.”

Clara Torres, a tourist from Albacete, Spain, who took the picture said that she had thought immediately of Madeleine. She told the Spanish radio station COPE last night: “As soon as I took the photo we were struck by the little girl, who was very blonde. Then yesterday (Monday) we heard on the news that there were various people who said they had seen Madeleine in Morocco.

“I ran to the computer, downloaded the photos and started to amplify the photo, and when we saw it we realised yes, it could be her. It sent shivers down my spine.

“Although it’s not 100 per cent certain, there’s a strong possibility it could be Madeleine and if it is it could provide a twist to everything that has happened.”

She said she handed the photograph, for which she has not received any payment, into the British Embassy and spoke to the McCanns’ lawyers yesterday morning after deciding that Spanish authorities were taking too long to carry out tests on the picture.

Mr and Mrs McCann have been concerned at the apparent lack of efforts by police to follow up potential sightings of Madeleine, particularly in Morocco.

Mrs McCann has always believed that her daughter could have been smuggled to Morocco within hours of her disappearance. The 30-minute ferry crossing from Spain to Tangiers is a five-hour drive from Praia da Luz, where the family were holidaying when Madeleine disappeared.

The picture was published as it emerged that the McCanns could be prosecuted for using a private security company in the search for their daughter, even though a senior Portuguese prosecutor admitted that she may have been abducted. The use of investigators by the McCanns has led to deep concern among the police and judicial authorities in Portugal, where it is illegal for private detectives to become involved in criminal cases.

A source close to the McCanns’ legal team has confirmed the involvement of Control Risks Group (CRG), but insisted that it is simply providing advice on the search for Madeleine. He said: “You can assume that they are doing some things that the Portuguese police can’t do.” Private investigators unconnected to CRG are believed to be already working in Morocco, Portugal and Spain.

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