Madeleine probe decision due 'by end of month'

Portugal’s attorney general said today he has asked prosecutors to decide by the end of the month whether to close the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Prosecutors are examining the final police report on the case of the girl who went missing in Portugal’s Algarve region during a family holiday on May 3, 2007, a few days before her fourth birthday.

“I have asked magistrates at the Public Prosecutor’s office – three of them - to carefully analyse the (police) report, which is enormous, and to present their conclusions to me by the end of the month, which is a reasonable period of time,” Attorney-General Fernando Pinto Monteiro told reporters.

“Either there will be some more police work to do ... or there’s nothing more to be done and the case will be closed. That will be known by the end of the month,” he said.

The case has drawn worldwide interest. A few weeks after Madeleine vanished, Pope Benedict XVI blessed her parents and a photo of their daughter during his weekly general audience at the Vatican. Numerous reported sightings of the blonde-haired girl proved to be false.

If authorities decide to close the case, it could still be reopened if new evidence emerges.

Detectives have named the girl’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, and local man Robert Murat as formal suspects in the case. They all have denied involvement.

The official judicial secrecy period granting confidentiality to the police investigation ends in mid-August when the suspects’ lawyers will be allowed to see the police case file.

The McCanns, who have waged an international campaign to find their daughter, have said that if the investigation were to be closed they expect the search for Madeleine to continue. They have also hired private investigators.