Portuguese police reopen case into missing Madeleine McCann after new leads

(24 Oct 2013) More than six years after British girl Madeleine McCann vanished from her bedroom during a family vacation in Portugal and five years after Portuguese police gave up trying to find her, authorities reopened the case on Thursday, citing new evidence.
Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, had long campaigned from their home in central England for the Portuguese investigation to resume.
In a statement on Thursday, they said they were "very pleased" at the development.
The couple, both doctors, continue to care for Madeleine's younger siblings, twins Sean and Amelie.
Britain's Home Secretary Teresa May said there was "very good collaboration" between the Metropolitan Police and the Portuguese police which was starting to "bear fruit."
"I hope it will enable a resolution of this terrible thing that happened to the McCann family," she said.
Madeleine went missing shortly before her fourth birthday.
Her disappearance sparked global interest as pictures of her and her grieving parents beamed around the world.
In a stunning twist, Portuguese police briefly considered the parents suspects before they were cleared and returned home.
Portuguese police closed the case in 2008 because authorities had detected no crime.
However, a team of detectives from Porto, in northern Portugal, began reviewing the evidence in March 2011.
They had not been involved in the original investigation.
The public prosecutor's office in Lisbon said it decided to reopen the investigation after new leads emerged during the case review.
It did not elaborate.
The case is subject to Portugal's judicial secrecy law, which forbids the release of information about investigations.
British police, meanwhile, launched Operation Grange in 2011 to try to find out what happened to Madeleine.
British detectives have been sifting through the case files in Portugal and say they also have identified new avenues of investigation.
They say both the timeline and the version of events surrounding the girl's disappearance have changed significantly as new information has emerged.
Madeleine disappeared from her family's resort apartment in Praia da Luz, a coastal town 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Lisbon, while her parents and their friends were eating dinner nearby.
British detectives say it is possible that Madeleine is still alive.

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