Tapas 7 face fresh grilling by police over Madeleine McCann

Dec 1 2007

Portuguese police are set to make a formal request to re-interview the friends of Kate and Gerry McCann over daughter Madeleine’s disappearance, it was reported today.

Sources told the SIC Portuguese news channel that a team of detectives and the prosecutor would fly to Britain next week for interviews.

According to reports, they will deliver letters of appeal to British police, asking them to interrogate the friends, known as the Tapas Seven, again with Portuguese officers present.

The McCanns were dining with friends when Madeleine went missing shortly before her fourth birthday in the resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3.

It was also reported police wanted to re-interview the McCanns but were refused permission without offering more evidence against the couple.

The Daily Mail reported that public prosecutor Jose Magalhaes e Meneses refused to grant permission for the McCanns to be reinterviewed without seeing stronger evidence against them first.

It said police and the prosecutor met for more than three hours to discuss the results of DNA tests carried out by the UK’s Forensic Science Service.

Today’s reports come a day after four members of the Portuguese investigation team flew home from the UK following a meeting with British forensic experts to discuss DNA samples collected for the inquiry.

The tests are said to have been carried out on blood samples, bodily fluids and hair found in the McCanns’ holiday apartment and the vehicle they hired 25 days after the child disappeared.

Both Leicestershire Police, who are helping their Portuguese counterparts, and the Birmingham-based Forensic Science Service have described the meeting as “routine”.

Mr McCann said in his diary on the Find Madeleine website, in an entry dated Thursday: “We have been told that all the forensic test results are now available.

“Kate and I are very hopeful now that any doubt what these important tests show will be removed.

“As we have stated all along, we are confident that the results will no way incriminate us and hopefully everyone can concentrate on finding Madeleine and her abductor.”

The McCanns’ spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said: “Kate and Gerry and their friends have consistently said they are more than happy to be reinterviewed if Portuguese police feel it is necessary.

“Indeed their friends are keen to be reinterviewed, if that helps to clarify any inconsistencies the police feel may exist in their original statements, and if it leads to Kate and Gerry being eliminated from the inquiry.

“Their friends, like Kate and Gerry, have absolutely nothing to hide.”