Portuguese police apologize to Madeleine McCann’s parents

globalnews.ca:

Madeleine McCann for the way the family was treated during the investigation into their three-year-old daughter’s disappearance in 2007.Earlier this year, a group of senior police officers from Lisbon travelled to London to meet with Madeleine’s father Gerry McCann, according to BBC Panorama. The officers reportedly apologized to Gerry for the handling of their investigation.Madeleine went missing from a hotel room in Praia da Luz, in Portugal’s Algarve, while on vacation with her family in May 2007.

Gerry and Kate McCann were dining with friends at a nearby tapas bar, leaving Madeleine and her two siblings asleep in their bedroom on the evening she vanished.Her disappearance launched a cross-country investigation and resulted in an international media frenzy. Publicity for the case only increased when Gerry and Kate were named as formal suspects, or “arguidos” in Portuguese.

The parents were questioned by police, who at the time believed they may have staged the abduction.In the years since Madeleine’s disappearance, Portuguese police have said their initial investigation was improperly handled.Gerry and Kate were cleared of suspicion in 2008. They have not commented publicly on the apology from Portuguese police.In the more than 15 years since Madeleine’s disappearance, Portuguese officials have collaborated with English and German police in an attempt to locate the girl and her kidnapper.In June 2020, German police said Madeleine is assumed dead.