Now alibi of Murat's girlfriend falls apart

Now alibi of Murat's girlfriend falls apart
By VANESSA ALLEN
Last updated at 08:40 24 November 2007

Michaela Walczuch

'Cast out': Robert Murat's lover Michaela Walczuch

The alibi of Madeleine McCann suspect Robert Murat's girlfriend has been thrown into doubt.

Friends of Michaela Walczuch claimed she had told police she was at a Jehovah's Witness prayer meeting on the night three-year-old Madeleine vanished.

But a woman at the church said she was not at the meeting while other worshippers said she was "cast aside" by their community more than a year ago.

They claimed Portuguese police had not taken the trouble to check her alibi.

A man at the church, who refused to give his name but said he was a "brother" in the group, said: "I haven't been interviewed. The police haven't been here."

The man, identified by locals as Teofilo Castela, refused to say why Miss Walczuch, 34, was thrown out of the congregation.

But she is known to have been seeing Mr Murat for almost two years while still living with estranged husband Luis Antonio. The strange set-up was thought to have angered Jehovah's Witness elders.

Mr Castela said. "She was cast aside. It was before this year. The church has certain rules and they must not be broken."

Claims that Miss Walczuch was at the church would have given her a solid alibi for the night that Madeleine disappeared.

The Jehovah's Witness group in Lagos holds Thursday night meetings between 8.30pm and 10.15pm, and Madeleine vanished between 9pm and 10pm on the night of May 3, which was a Thursday.

If witnesses had agreed that she was there, it would have placed her five miles from Praia da Luz where Madeleine vanished.

But a woman at the church - a gloomy, badly lit room at the bottom of a rundown block of flats - denied Miss Walczuch attended the May 3 meeting.

She said she had not seen the German-born mother-of-one all year, since she had been thrown out. Others said they could not remember if she attended in May.

Miss Walczuch has refused to reveal publicly where she was on May 3, or on the dates when two witnesses claim to have seen her with a child resembling Madeleine. She has dismissed the alleged sightings as "ridiculous and bizarre".