McCanns 'not commenting' on leaked police report

Portuguese detectives made Madeleine McCann’s parents suspects on the “slightest chance” they could have been involved in her disappearance, a leaked report revealed today.

An official 57-page summary of the massive final dossier assembled by the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) – Portugal’s CID – was apparently posted online.

The leak came as Gerry and Kate McCann considered taking legal action against the Portuguese authorities after the couple had their suspect status formally lifted yesterday.

The police report, dated June 20 2008 and written by an Algarve-based PJ inspector, was placed on the website of the Portuguese newspaper Expresso.

Detectives named the McCanns as “arguidos”, or formal suspects, last September in the light of sniffer dog searches and initial DNA test results, according to the document.

This was because inquiries had flagged up the “slightest chance of their involvement with a possible corpse” in their holiday flat and hire car, it said.

The leaked report said a “cadaver dog”, trained to sniff out dead bodies, picked up a scent in the McCanns’ apartment and on clothes belonging to Mrs McCann and Madeleine.

The animal also apparently scented death on the key of the Renault Scenic hire car rented by the McCanns 24 days after the little girl went missing.

Preliminary forensic analysis on samples recovered from the McCanns’ hire car raised the possibility of a match with Madeleine’s DNA profile, the report said.

But final DNA test results could not match the material to any particular person – or even establish whether it was blood or another type of body fluid.

When Mr and Mrs McCann, both 40, were interviewed on September 6 and 7 they denied having anything to do with their daughter’s disappearance, the document noted.

Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3 last year as her parents dined with friends nearby.

The leaked PJ report details the numerous leads Portuguese detectives pursued fruitlessly – including psychic visions and thousands of reported sightings of Madeleine from as far away as Indonesia and Singapore.

On one day the child was supposedly seen in places 4,000km (2,485 miles) apart.

The report also said extensive investigations found no evidence at all linking Praia da Luz resident Robert Murat, the first arguido in the case, to Madeleine’s disappearance.

Mr Murat, 34, an Anglo-Portuguese property consultant, also had his suspect status lifted yesterday.

The document concludes that despite all detectives’ efforts it was not possible to reach a “concrete and objective” conclusion about the truth of what happened to Madeleine that night.

McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell criticised the apparent leaking of the report.

He said: “As always we simply will not comment on anything that appears to be from the usual anonymous sources.

“If any elements of the police report are being placed online, that would not only be wrong, you have to ask yourself who is behind it and why.

“Gerry and Kate’s lawyers in Portugal will be applying formally for access to the complete file and they will be analysing everything in it in their own time without making elements public at this stage.”

The office of Portuguese attorney-general Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro announced yesterday that the Madeleine case was being shelved because there was no evidence the three suspects in the case had committed any crimes.

Alipio Ribeiro, national director of the PJ until May, criticised this decision and warned that rushing to close an inquiry could be “harmful”.

He told the Portuguese newspaper Diario Economico: “A case of the disappearance of a child cannot be closed for lack of evidence such a short time after the tragedy.”

The McCanns, from Rothley, Leicestershire, are hoping that the opening of the police files will provide fresh leads in their own private investigation into their daughter’s whereabouts.

The couple’s Portuguese lawyers are still awaiting official notification that they can examine the documents in detail.

But it is hoped they will gain access to the dossier, thought to stretch to 13 volumes, by the end of this week.

Mr and Mrs McCann will “bide their time” before speaking out on the police inquiry, Mr Mitchell said.

Legal action against the Portuguese authorities is an option but that is not the couple’s priority, he added.

Mr Mitchell said: “It’s going to be a long, slow process, both for the lawyers in examining the volumes and for Kate and Gerry to be informed of their contents and whether there’s any need for legal redress.

“The priority has always been finding Madeleine so the investigative work is first and foremost.

“If there are any leads from the files, for instance new sightings, that’s what the private investigators will focus on in the first instance.

“The question of legal action remains an option but that is not the priority right now.

“It is something Kate and Gerry will take advice on from the British and Portuguese lawyers.”