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Belgian police investigate new Madeleine sighting

Detectives are investigating a reported sighting of Madeleine McCann in Belgium made earlier this week.

  • By Nick Allen, The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008
  • Published: 00:02 August 10, 2008
  • Gulf News

Brussels: Detectives are investigating a reported sighting of Madeleine McCann in Belgium made earlier this week.

A bank security guard in Brussels said she saw a blonde, blue-eyed girl who bore a striking resemblance to the missing girl in the bank's branch in the west of the city on Monday morning.

She was brought into the bank by a woman of North African origin, according to the security guard.

The sighting follows more than 100 in Belgium over the past 15 months.

Johan Berckmans, a spokesman for the West Brussels police department, said: "We are taking it seriously and we are investigating. We have to be certain."

Belgian police are scouring CCTV images from the bank to see if the girl was captured on camera.

The security guard reported it on Thursday after it had emerged publicly that Scotland Yard received intelligence suggesting Madeleine was snatched to order by a Belgian paedophile ring.

Belgium's missing children unit has also been informed. It has now received 108 witness reports relating to Madeleine since her disappearance in Portugal on May 3 last year.

A police source involved in the hunt for Madeleine said: "Of course we get a lot of useless sightings from crackpots but this is from a very credible person, a bank employee."

- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008

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