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The head of the Portuguese CID admitted yesterday that he had no idea what had
happened to Madeleine McCann since she disappeared 106 days ago.
Alípio Ribeiro, the director of the Polícia Judiciária, said he was still
optimistic that his officers would discover the missing girl’s fate, although
he said that she was most likely to be dead.
Mr Ribeiro admitted that officers had not warned Madeleine’s parents, Kate and
Gerry McCann, before saying that they now believed that Madeleine was probably
dead. “They are being informed of what happens, but it is a very dynamic
investigation,” he said. “We work with many hypotheses. We cannot explain to
them everything we are investigating.”
The Times revealed yesterday that Portuguese detectives had been told that
traces of blood found in the bedroom from where Madeleine was abducted were not
from her.
A senior Portuguese police source confirmed: “We have been informed that the
blood was from a man.”
The news appeared to give fresh hope to Mr and Mrs McCann, who thanked the
thousands of people who supported them during accusations that blood proved
that their daughter had been killed in her bedroom.
“Over last weekend alone they received 7,000 e-mails of support and countless
letters of support,” a spokeswoman said.
However, Mr Ribeiro said that his officers were not close to discovering what
happened to Madeleine after her disappearance from a holiday apartment at the
Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz. “We have no idea where Madeleine could be,”
he told El Mundo newspaper in Spain.
“There is a long road ahead and it would be very frivolous for me to say that
we are close to the end.”
He insisted that progress had been made: “We are not where we were at the
start. If I say I’m optimistic it’s because I think we will end up
understanding what occurred. If we weren’t optimistic, we would not have the
courage to advance. This is a very complex case.”
Mr Ribeiro said that while the belief by police that Madeleine, from Rothley,
Leicestershire, was most likely to be dead, as revealed in The Times on
Wednesday, “is a strong hypothesis, we cannot say she has died. It is on the
table and it is necessary for us to analyse it.”
He insisted again that Madeleine’s parents had never been considered suspects
in her disappearance on May 3, shortly before her fourth birthday. He also said
that contradictions in the statements from the three British couples and the
woman who were on holiday with the McCanns were “worth little”. The fellow
holidaymakers are likely to be interviewed by police again. The couples are
Russell O’Brien and Jane Tanner, both 36, from Exeter;
Fiona Payne, 34, and her husband, David, from Leicester; and Rachel Oldfield,
36, and her husband, Matthew, from London.
Mr Ribeiro said. “We are working to clear up a difficult situation. Especially
as concerns the motive. It could have been for money, for revenge, for crime or
hatred. We don’t know.”
He criticised some of his officers for leaking information that led to false
media reports. “The police should be discreet, but there is always someone who
talks,” Mr Ribeiro said. “Sometimes it is someone who knows nothing and just
wants to be a protagonist.”
Scientists at the headquarters of the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham are continuing
to carry out tests on items discovered in the McCanns’ apartment and in other
areas. They are also carrying out further tests on the traces of blood
discovered by British sniffer dogs in the apartment.
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