Madeleine inquiry is shelved

The 14-month investigation into the disappearance of missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann has been terminated by Portuguese police. Portugal’s attorney general Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro has ordered police to end their inquiry and today confirmed that the three formal suspects in the case - Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, and local expat Robert Murat - have all been exonerated.

Monteiro said that the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3, 2007 has been shelved due to “insufficient evidence”, although it could be reopened later if any new information was uncovered.

McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said that he hoped Portuguese police would hand over their detectives’ files to the McCann’s team of private investigators to allow them to continue with the investigation.

Goncarlo Amarl, the former Portuguese police chief who was leading the inquiry, defended the efforts of his police force. "We tried and we worked hard, so we can't be accused of incompetence or failure," he said. Amarl is currently writing a book about the McCann investigation.