Madeleine: Body needed to press charges
Madeleine has been missing since May 3rd
Tuesday, 25, Sep 2007 08:52
A high-ranking Portuguese prosecutor has said that it would be difficult to bring murder charges against suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann without finding the body of the four-year-old.
Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann have been declared suspects in the case and police are investigating a theory that they may have accidentally killed their daughter and used a hire car to transport the body.
The president of Portugal's public prosecutor's service, Antonio Cluny, told local newspaper 24 Horas that more evidence was needed to pursue homicide charges.
Speaking to the paper, he said: "Without the little girl's body everything is extremely complicated.
"There have been cases where it has been possible to obtain a conviction without there being a victim, but there were confessions. One cannot accuse a person of homicide without there being very strong evidence.
"In the Maddie case there is no confession, and according to what has been made public the evidence gathered up to now keeps all leads open, from abduction to homicide or at least a simple accident," he added.
The McCanns have dismissed their involvement in their daughter's disappearance and have launched legal proceedings against a newspaper that claimed they had killed their child.
The couple's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said they were working hard to clear their names and to maintain efforts to search for their missing daughter.
It has been widely reported that Kate and Gerry have employed the services of a private firm, whose staff include former SAS members and military personnel, to help find Madeleine.
The Control Risks group, which provides crisis management and emergency services, was established to help locate kidnap victims in Latin America. Media have reported that the private firm is following up reported sightings in Morocco and Spain.
This week a sighting of the missing girl was reported in Morocco after a woman claimed to have seen the girl at a petrol station.