Portuguese police said Friday they were reviewing their casework in connection with the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann, but this did not imply a reopening of the investigation.
A police team from Oporto, in the north of the country, was working in close cooperation with Britain's Scotland Yard, deputy police chief Pedro do Carmo told AFP.
Portuguese police wound up their initial investigation into the 2007 disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine some 14 months ago. But her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, won an assurance from British Prime Minister David Cameron that British police would help to re-examine the evidence.
Madeleine went missing from an apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007, a few days before her fourth birthday, as her parents and their friends dined at a restaurant nearby.
The parents welcomed the news of a review of clues gathered during the investigation in a statement sent to Portugal's Lusa news agency.
“What the parents want most of all is to find out what happened to their daughter, with the hope of finding her alive. For that, police must never give up looking for her, nor stop following leads,” the McCanns' Portuguese lawyer Rogerio Alves said for his part.
Do Carmo said cooperation with Scotland Yard, the London Metropolitan Police, “has been carried out with the utmost discretion and will continue this way.”
He also said that “no time limit” had been set for the Portuguese police review work. - AFP