Four officers from New Scotland Yard arrived in the Algarve on Wednesday 29 January to meet Policia Judiciaria (PJ) investigators. The British team is keen to interview three local suspects that are key to the ongoing Madeleine McCann case.
The British officers want to continue their investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from Praia da Luz in 2007 and need to discuss with PJ officers the feasibility of arresting and questioning the three suspects, and ask for local assistanceas the British have no right to arrest anyone in Portugal.
The arrival of the New Scotland Yard team comes more than a week after Portugal’s Prosecutor General's Office received a formal request for assistance from the British authorities. This was passed on to the judicial authorities in Portimao and it is hoped that with the arrival of the officers the next step in this distressing case can be completed.
The Portuguese police closed the investigation in 2008 but the British authorities spent two years reviewing the case and it was reopened in July last year on the presentation of new evidence to the Portuguese authorities.
Scotland Yard has examined the mobile phone records of the three men they wish to interview. The men are suspected of committing several break-ins in the Praia da Luz area in the period leading up to Madeleine's disappearance. Phone records analysed by the British police show that the men made several calls to each other in the hours that followed the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
A report and picture in Correio de Manha on Thursday morning shows the officers left Faro airport in the afternoon of the same day as they arrived. No statement has been issued by either the Portuguese authorities or the British police adding to the unnecessary mystery surrounding this operation.
The national director of the Judicial Police, José Maria Almeida Rodrigues, said that he could not reveal details of the visit, "We are operating under secrecy and can not say more," he said after reports of the meeting were circulating in the media.
