New suspects are to be interviewed by Portuguese police in the Madeleine McCann enquiry, two of them are British expats who were living in Portugal at the time of the girl’s disappearance in 2007.
The two British men have been declared formal suspects, or arguidos, and local police will be questioning them later this month and will obtain DNA samples.
A further four individuals are being treated as witnesses and two further British expats, a man and a woman, will assist the local Portuguese police as witnesses.
Any DNA samples collected as part of this new series of interviews will be cross checked against evidence taken at the time of the original investigation.
The Portuguese police enquiry is running in parallel with Operation Grange and detectives from Scotland Yard are still ‘pursuing a number of lines of inquiry.’
The theory that Madeleine McCann was abducted by a local Portuguese man who has since died in a tractor accident, has been scuppered by DNA tests which ruled out the former Ocean Club employee Euclides Monteiro from Portelas, near Lagos.
This summer detectives questioned four Portuguese men about Madeleine’s disappearance but the Portuguese police are now looking at the possibility that one or more foreign nationals abducted Madeleine, rather than a local Portuguese.
Last month forensic specialists visited Portugal to review the samples and evidence collected at the time of Madeline’s disappearance and in July officers questioned four Portuguese nationals.
The June search for evidence by a British police team on wasteland near to the resort revealed nothing new.
Whether the Operation Grange team has been kept abreast of the Portuguese equiries is not yet known but detectives from Scotland Yard are expected to be allowed to sit in during the questioning of these latest suspects although no official request has yet been received.
