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| Portuguese Officials Open Madeleine McCann Police File - |
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wvgirl
 Posted:
Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:24 am |
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Portuguese Officials Open Madeleine McCann Police File
Monday , August 04, 2008
A Portuguese police file containing almost 30,000 pages of evidence from the investigation into the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann was made public Monday.
A court clerk in the southern Portuguese town of Portimao, near where the child vanished last year in the Algarve region, said the file was available to journalists who filed a written request and appeared in person at the court.
Officials would then copy the file onto DVDs, which journalists would have to provide, the clerk said on condition of anonymity in line with department rules.
She said the file is divided into 17 volumes and comprises close to 30,000 pages.
Madeleine McCann vanished May 3, 2007, a few days before her fourth birthday, from a hotel room during a family vacation in Praia da Luz, a coastal Algarve town.
Last month, Portugal's attorney general ordered police to halt their 14-month investigation because detectives had uncovered no evidence of a crime.
The case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
Portuguese lawyers acting for Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry, gained official access to the files last week. The McCanns have said they hoped to find leads that private investigators could follow up on.
Last year, police named Madeleine's parents and resident Robert Murat as suspects in the case. All three denied involvement.
The McCanns have waged a far-reaching international campaign to find their daughter, but there has been no reliable indication of what might have happened to her despite numerous reported sightings from around the world.
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:32 am |
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At last, secrets of the Madeleine police search are unlocked as Portugese secrecy laws are lifted Daily Mail
By VANESSA ALLEN
Last updated at 11:16 PM on 03rd August 2008
The contents of the Madeleine McCann case files will be unlocked today, ending 15 months of leaks, smears and innuendo.
The secrecy of justice laws surrounding the Portuguese police investigation will be lifted, allowing public access to the documents.
Every witness statement, tip-off and lead followed by detectives since Madeleine's disappearance on May 3 last year is contained in the mammoth file, along with the transcripts of interviews with her parents and British ex-pat Robert Murat.
Kate and Gerry McCann's legal team has had access to the 11,000-page file since last week, after the Portuguese attorney general formally shelved the inquiry and cleared them and Mr Murat as suspects.
The McCanns, both 40, are desperately hoping the file contains a missed clue which could lead them to their daughter.
The couple have several teams of detectives on standby ready to travel across the world to check any potential leads.
Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: 'Our lawyers have begun looking at the files. They are discovering what was done - and crucially what was not done - in the investigation to find Madeleine.
'All previously unknown leads will be passed to our investigators, who are poised to check them out.'
Until now the only people to have seen the case files are the McCanns' lawyers, the detectives who led the inquiry, and the public prosecutors and judges overseeing the inquiry.
But at 2pm today an edited version of the dossier will be released to more than 1,000 journalists who applied to the prosecutor for permission to view it.
Demand to see the case file has been so great that court officials have scanned the pages into a computer and compiled them on DVDs.
Some information has been edited out, including a list of known and suspected paedophiles who were living in the Algarve at the time Maddie disappeared from her family's holiday apartment.
The video of the specialist sniffer dogs reacting to alleged traces of blood and the 'scent of death' in the apartment and the McCanns' hire car will be released at a later date.
The release will finally expose the controversial investigation to the full glare of public scrutiny.
Issues that may be highlighted are the failure to alert border patrols in the first 12 hours, and any missed leads or queries over forensic evidence.
Strict secrecy laws supposedly protected the investigation until it was archived last month.
Under Portuguese law any police officer, witness or suspect who spoke about the inquiry risked a two-year jail sentence for breaking the secrecy code.
But in practice officials within the investigation regularly briefed selected Portuguese journalists with details from the inquiry, in apparent attempts to pressure Mr and Mrs McCann into confessing their alleged involvement.
Later these seemed aimed at poisoning public opinion against them.
The couple believe the decision to name them as suspects, or arguidos, could have set back their own search for their daughter, as vital witnesses might not have contacted them with information if they believed the pair were involved.
Much of the leaking was blamed on the former head of the police inquiry, Goncalo Amaral, who last month published a book containing many of the same vile smears against the couple and their friends.
He was removed from the investigation in November after an angry outburst against British police, and his successor Paulo Rebelo successfully clamped down on the leaks.
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:00 pm |
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This picture, released along with thousands of pages of evidence from the Madeleine McCann police investigation, shows the bed she slept in before she disappeared.
The new images show Madeleine's bed and the travel cots where her sibling-twins slept in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
This shot shows the bedroom window, through which it is believed Madeleine was taken.
In this wider view, Madeleine's bed is circled in red.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:03 pm |
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The documents include forensic details as well as interviews with Kate and Gerry McCann.
There are also previously unseen official pictures from inside the apartment where the family was staying when Madeleine went missing - including a photo of the bed in which she had been sleeping.
The police files from the exhaustive inquiry, which lasted more than 14 months, were made public this afternoon after the shelving of the case a fortnight ago.
The mammoth dossier - said to run to 20,000 pages - includes details of the lines of inquiry pursued by detectives, witness statements and transcripts of interviews with the little girl's parents, Gerry and Kate McCann.
The files were released under Portuguese law after the period of judicial secrecy in the case was lifted.
Lawyers for the McCanns, from Rothley, Leicestershire, were formally given access to the files last week.
They are studying the dossier for fresh leads that the couple's private detectives can follow up in their own search for their daughter.
The McCanns are keen not to give "a running commentary" on their legal team's trawl through the files, family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said today.
And they are reluctant to respond to questions raised by journalists allowed access to the documents.
Mr Mitchell said: "The Portuguese Attorney General, in his recent statement, made it very clear indeed that there's absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing by Kate and Gerry in any way, shape or form and journalists should bear that in mind when they examine the police files.
"A lot of this is historical detail drafted by officers who failed to find Madeleine and who quite wrongfully were going down inaccurate lines of supposition and assumption.
"We will not be commenting on any of this.
"Kate and Gerry are no longer arguidos (formal suspects). The Portuguese judicial system has accepted that they were not involved in Madeleine's disappearance in any way, shape or form and these files should be seen in that context.
"All that matters is the search for Madeleine. Kate and Gerry's lawyers are continuing to examine all of the information in minute detail and where anything that is relevant to finding Madeleine needs to be done it will be."
Until now Portugal's strict "segredo de justica" - or secrecy of justice - laws have limited the flow of information about the Madeleine inquiry.
The legislation is supposed to ban anyone linked to an ongoing police investigation from speaking about it, but has not stopped a series of leaks.
The McCanns repeatedly complained about restricted information being made public, and the couple believe there was a concerted smear campaign against them.
Concerns were also raised at the top level in Portugal, with the country's justice minister, Alberto Costa, describing the leaks as "worrying" in February.
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