The
disappearance happened seven years ago
in the Algarve. The English police has
in the meantime opened a parallel
investigation into the case and sent
recent rogatory letter to the Attorney
General's office with a request to carry
out more diligences which has not been
approved yet.
The English police authorities are
preparing to come to Portugal to start a
new phase of the investigation into the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which
happened in the Algarve seven years ago.
The police now wants to perform
excavations in the resort where the
English family was staying and also in
some nearby areas.
According to the Guardian, a British
newspaper, a forensics team wants to com
into the country to use an equipment
that functions based on a radar that
allows for information to be collected
from the soil. The work plan is
described in a police report, but the
authorities did not want to comment on
the information, justifying that since
the operation led by the British police
started, they don't want to feed
speculation. Operation Grange started in
May of 2011 and since July an
investigation has been formally opened.
Despite the will of the English
investigators, the diligences that are
at stake have to be authorised by the
Portuguese authorities. A PJ source
asserted to PÚBLICO [newspaper] that the
Attorney General's Office has recently
received a rogatory letter in which the
British authorities request several
diligences that have not been authorised
yet. The PJ has not confirmed if said
diligences include excavations.
The same source said that some of the
diligences, due to their nature, are not
expected to be approved. The requests
that are authorised may be carried out
on the terrain with or without the
presence of investigators from the
English police, the PJ stressed. PÚBLICO
questioned the Attorney General's Office
which, until now, has not offered
clarification.
The inquiry into the disappearance of
the little English child has been
reopened in Portugal in October last
year, but these diligences that have now
been thought up by the British
investigators will, eventually, be
carried out only within that country's
investigation.
According to the Guardian, Madeleine's
parents will not travel to Portugal, and
will follow the operations from a
distance, this time. Nevertheless, just
last week, Kate and Gerry McCann said
that they believe a joint operation
might accelerate the investigation into
their daughter's disappearance.
"What we really would like to see is a
joint investigation instead of two
running in parallel. There is a lot of
bureaucracy involved, international
rogatory letters that are very
inconvenient and which have a very slow
process", the father stated in an
interview to Lusa agency.
There are currently two investigations
taking place, one in Portugal, under the
Polícia Judiciária, after the inquiry
was reopened by the Public Ministry, and
another one in the United Kingdom, under
the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard).
Recently, the joint vice-commissioner of
the British police, Martin Hewitt,
regretted the refusal of the Portuguese
authorities in forming a joint
investigation, but Gerry McCann insists
on this solution.
On the British police's side, the
developments after several public
appeals for information - the most
recent of which is related to alleged
sexual attacks against British families
spending their holidays in the Algarve -
resulted in the identification of
several cases. The police confirmed that
it has identified a total of 18 cases in
which English families spending their
vacation in Portugal complained about an
intruder entering their underaged
daughters' bedrooms, of which nine
resulted in sexual attacks, and
describing common traces that lead to
believe that the cases may be related.
Madeleine McCann, then aged four,
disappeared from an apartment in Praia
da Luz where, in 2007, she spent her
holidays with her parents and siblings.
At the time, her parents were dining
with friends at a restaurant near the
apartment. The case was investigated by
the Portuguese authorities, and archived
by the Public Ministry in 2008, due to a
lack of evidence, and later reopened
with additional data that was collected
in the United Kingdom. |
