(Lisbon) Portuguese police continue to take steps in the hope of unraveling the mystery of the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann, and of informing her family about the progress of the investigation, she said. indicated Monday in a press release.
However, the judicial police did not confirm the information reported by the BBC, according to which the Portuguese authorities had apologized to the parents of little Maddie for the way in which the investigation into the disappearance of the little girl was carried out in May 2007.
“Face-to-face contacts took place with members of the family of the missing child, in order to transmit – only – an update on the situation of the procedure,” declared the Portuguese police.
“In close coordination with the British and German authorities, formal acts of investigation and expert assessments continue to be carried out, in Portugal and abroad,” she said.
The public prosecutor’s office in Brunswick, in northern Germany, has said since 2020 that it is convinced that the British girl is dead and suspects a German multi-repeat sexual attacker, Christian B., already imprisoned in his country for a rape in Portugal.
Then aged almost four, Madeleine McCann disappeared from her room in a hotel complex in Praia da Luz, a seaside resort in the Algarve region (south), while her parents were dining with friends in a restaurant neighbor.
Kate and Gerry McCann then launched an exceptional international campaign to try to find their daughter, without success.
After 14 months of controversial investigations, marked in particular by the indictment and subsequent exoneration of the couple, the Portuguese courts closed the case in 2008, before reopening the case five years later due to the appearance “new elements”.
After spending two years studying the case, the United Kingdom officially opened its own investigation in July 2013, but since then, only the German lead has allowed real progress in a case which constitutes one of the greatest criminal enigmas of recent years.
At the request of German authorities, Portuguese police carried out searches near a water reservoir in the south of the country at the end of May. “Elements” were discovered there, according to the Brunswick public prosecutor’s office, which then estimated that it was “still too early” to determine whether they were linked to the disappearance of the child.