Saturday June 30, 2007

By Padraic Flanagan in Praia da Luz

A CHILD’S  makeshift bed has been discovered at the villa of a ruthless couple who plotted to swindle a £2.5million reward from Madeleine McCann’s parents.

Police sources in Portugal said a small cot was found in the garage of convicted child abuser Danilo Chemello and his girlfriend Aurora Pereira Vaz.

Officers also uncovered a sinister archive on four-year-old Madeleine after a swoop at the the couple’s Spanish estate revealed dozens of newspaper cuttings about the kidnapping.

They amassed documents and photographs at the Sotogrande home on the Costa del Sol – a five-hour drive from Praia da Luz in Portugal where Madeleine was snatched 58 days ago.

Officers believe they were planning to use the cuttings to support their false claim that they know where Madeleine is.

Italian Chemello, 61, and his Portuguese partner Vaz, 54, were arrested on Thursday following a surveillance operation. They had approached a lawyer in order to get in touch with the McCanns to tell them how they could be reunited with their daughter. Chemello is due to appear before a judge in San Roque today behind closed doors. He is likely to be transferred to Madrid in the next few days to be extradited to Portugal.

Chemello, who with Vaz was given an 18-month jail sentence for an appalling catalogue of child neglect against his stepdaughter, was already wanted on an international arrest warrant issued in France for trying to blackmail a judge.

Vaz, from Portugal’s Algarve region, is also known to authorities for masterminding an illegal adoption racket. She was still being questioned last night at a police station at La Linea, near Gibraltar, but is also expected to appear before the judge.

As Spanish and Portuguese police continued to investigate the couple’s links to the Madeleine hunt, an extraordinary picture began to emerge of their crime-ridden backgrounds, spreading from Italy across Europe.

The pair were jailed in 2004 after Vaz’s five-year-old daughter was subjected to a shocking catalogue of abuse. The terrified child “was forced to live like an animal” and was kept locked in a darkened room with her hands taped and fed dog food from a bowl on the floor, their trial was told.

They were freed after serving only 10 months and moved to upmarket Sotogrande.

Chemello is still wanted by the French authorities for trying to blackmail the woman judge who jailed him.

On his release from prison Chemello hired a private detective to uncover details on Judge Dominique Tatouex, then used the information to blackmail her for £700,000.

Police had tried to arrest him but found Chemello had fled. He was tried in his absence and sentenced to three years in prison.

The wealthy couple also attracted the frequent attention of the Italian authorities. In 1996, Chemello and Vaz were cleared of involvement in the kneecapping of her ex-husband, Alberto Tana, who ran several bureaux de change offices. Tana was involved in a bitter divorce battle with Vaz over custody of the couple’s daughter Carolina and he was shot outside a rowing club on the River Tiber in Rome.

Although cleared of ordering the shooting, both were given 16-month jail sentences for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and firearms offences.

In 2000 they had also tried to frame Tana by planting drugs and a gun in his car and spreading false rumours that he was a paedophile.

The pair were given five-year jail sentences in 2001 and a police officer who gave them the drugs was also convicted.

Yesterday an Italian police source said: “Vaz is completely without scruples and a very hard and determined woman. She was willing to use any means to blacken the reputation of her ex husband.”

Known as the Construction King, Chemello built a multi-million pound fortune through construction firms. He owned homes in millionaire playgrounds such as Sardinia and the Cote d’Azur in southern France plus yachts and expensive cars. He is also said to have owned a diamond mine.