Portuguese police are bungling the hunt for Madeleine McCann, say Brit detectives
FRUSTRATED British police fear Portuguese officers are chasing the wrong lead in the hunt for Madeleine McCann.
Top brass are desperate to liaise with their foreign colleagues after it emerged they are chasing different suspects.
UK detectives are worried an “us against them” scenario is developing, and it could hinder attempts to find the missing girl.
British investigators believe the three-year-old was snatched after disturbing burglars who broke into her parents’ holiday apartment.
And their chief suspects are a three-strong gang who made a high number of mobile calls nearby on the night Maddie vanished.
But Portuguese detectives are concentrating their efforts on a theory that a now-dead heroin addict abducted Madeleine.
They believe Euclides Monteiro snatched her in a twisted act of revenge against the Ocean Club holiday resort after he had been sacked from a job there the year before.
They have questioned his widow Luisa after mobile phone analysis placed his handset near the McCanns’ apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz that night in May, 2007.
Monteiro, 40, was killed in a tractor accident four years ago.
Police from both nations launched separate hunts for Madeleine last year after each spent two years reviewing files from the original case, shelved as an unsolved mystery in 2008.
Though each force claims to have unearthed new leads, their inquiries are heading in different directions.
A source close to the UK inquiry said: “If we don’t form a joint investigation task force, any advantages in terms of pooling resources and information may be lost.
“We can’t have an ‘us against them’ scenario developing. This is not a game. A little girl’s life may be at stake.’’
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has called on the UK and Portuguese governments to form a joint international task force to conduct a single united inquiry.
He said the UK and Portuguese probes were “two separate inquiries with a different focus”.
And he added: “It’s important that we work together on what is clearly a common problem.’’
Yesterday Luisa Rodrigues, 40, said she was sure her husband did not snatch Madeleine. She said when Portuguese detectives told her he was their No 1 suspect, she was “speechless”.
She added: “They said they suspected him because he used to work at the Ocean Club complex and because they had tracked the signal from his mobile.
“But I’m sure he would have been at home watching TV. That’s what he always did after work."
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/365974/Portuguese-police-are-bungling-the-hunt-for-Madeleine-McCann-say-Brit-detectives
