Thu. Oct 10th, 2024

Portuguese police have reportedly apologised to the parents of Madeleine McCann for the way detectives investigated the case and treated the family.

Madeleine vanished in May 2007 while on holiday with her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, in Praia da Luz, after they left the then three-year-old and her younger twin siblings asleep in their apartment while they went out to dinner with friends.

According to BBC Panorama, a delegation of senior Portuguese police officers travelled from Lisbon to London earlier this year, where they met and apologised to Mr McCann.

The delegation reportedly said the initial investigation was not handled properly, insufficient importance was given at the time to missing children, and officers did not properly appreciate the McCanns’ position as foreigners in an environment they did not understand.

During questioning of Madeleine’s parents in September 2007, detectives made them both “arguidos” – or suspects – in their daughter’s disappearance.

Detectives suggested the pair had staged Madeleine’s abduction and hidden her body. Mrs McCann claims she was even offered a deal – a shorter sentence if she admitted guilt.

Their “arguidos” status was lifted in 2008 but they remained under suspicion for a number of years, especially by the original lead detective Goncalo Amaral.

Later, in a case thrown out by the Portuguese supreme court, the McCanns would try to sue Amaral over “libelous” claims he made in his book about them. They also tried to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights and lost.

Christian Wolters, a prosecutor on the long-running case, said of the apology: “It’s a good sign. It shows that, in Portugal, there is a development in the McCann case.”

Now, the prime suspect in the case is Christian Brueckner. The 46-year-old German and convicted paedophile is accused of Madeleine’s murder but is yet to be charged.

He is in prison for raping a young woman in the Algarve in 2004 and has been charged with a string of offences including three rapes and two sex attacks on children in his former home of Praia da Luz

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