LISBON — Portuguese police said Thursday they will not reopen the inquiry into the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann because there was no new evidence.
Pedro do Carmo, the deputy head of the criminal police department, made the comments a day after British police announced they had 195 new leads in the case and said Madeleine could still be alive.
“There are no new elements at the moment that would allow for the reopening of the inquiry,” do Carmo told AFP.
Madeleine disappeared on May 3, 2007, during a family vacation on Portugal’s Algarve coast. She had been left alone with her younger twin siblings in a resort apartment while her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, dined just over 100 yards (90 meters) away.
With the fifth anniversary of her disappearance looming, London’s Metropolitan Police said Wednesday that after reviewing 100,000 pages of information, they had identified nearly 200 investigative “opportunities,” and believed they had developed new material.
They also released a computer-generated image of what the girl would look like today, as she approaches her ninth birthday, depicting her with long, side-parted hair.
Commander Simon Foy, Scotland Yard’s head of homicide command, told reporters that a 37-strong team began the review in May last year.
“Most significantly, the message we want to bring to you is that, on the evidence, there is a possibility that she is alive and we desperately need your help today to appeal directly to the public for information to support our investigation,” Foy said.
However, do Carmo said Thursday that the Portuguese police had received “no formal request for the reopening of the inquiry.”
A team of Portuguese investigators would continue “to re-examine elements of the inquiry” in collaboration with British police, as was normal practice, but that did not constitute a reopening of the case, do Carmo added.
Kate and Gerry McCann earlier Thursday welcomed Scotland Yard’s desire to reopen the case.
The couple’s spokesman, Clarence Mitchell told BBC Breakfast, “Kate and Gerry welcome this and they are hugely encouraged by what the police have been doing all of this last year since the launch of the investigative review.”