Doubtful this will amount to anything, but worth raising the case profile in hopes she is still out there being raised by (unwitting) adoptive parents.Madeleine McCann case to be reviewed by Portuguese police
Detectives in Portugal are re-examining evidence from the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance
Photo: PAUL GROVER
Last Updated: 9:57AM GMT 10/03/2012
Portuguese police have launched a review of the Madeleine McCann case four years after the investigation was formally shelved.
A team of detectives based in Oporto in northern Portugal has been appointed to re-examine the original investigation into the little girl's disappearance from the Algarve in 2007, the Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias reported.
Scotland Yard officers have been carrying out their own review since last May.
It is understood that the team from Portugal's investigative Policia Judiciaria (PJ), headed by senior officer Helena Monteiro, has been looking at the Madeleine case for some weeks now.
Madeleine was nearly four when she went missing from her family's holiday flat in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3 2007 as her parents Kate and Gerry dined with friends nearby.
Portuguese detectives, helped by officers from Leicestershire Police, carried out a massive investigation into her disappearance. The official inquiry was formally shelved in July 2008.
Scotland Yard's review of the case, called Operation Grange, was launched after a request from Home Secretary Theresa May supported by Prime Minister David Cameron.
Portugal's Correio da Manha newspaper reported that the PJ officers have not found any new leads that point to Madeleine's whereabouts and so will not formally reopen their investigation.
McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: ''Kate and Gerry obviously welcome the work being done by the PJ in Oporto alongside that of the Met investigative team.
''They clearly hope that it will lead to the case being reopened in due course.
''There is good co-operation between the Met and the PJ, and Kate and Gerry remain grateful for the time and resources that have been put into the search for Madeleine.
''They will not be discussing any details whilst both the Met investigative review and the PJ work is continuing, but clearly it is a positive development.''
The McCann's Portuguese lawyer Rogerio Alves said he believes the review of the case was sparked by a fresh information.
He told the Daily Mirror: "It's not certain, but what's happening at the moment is that some of the information passed to the authorities could lead to a reopening of the case.
"There is something that aroused enough interest from the Portuguese and British police to warrant this review in search of new clues.
"The most plausible explanation is that information passed to or acquired by the Judicial Police has put them on the trail of something specific."
This case makes my blood boil; a bunch of young professional parents without the good sense to hire a sitter for their evening out! They could have parked all the kids at one flat and chipped in for one sitter. Doctors, even! It's damning that social services didn't take any substantive action against any of them; poor folks have their young children removed when they leave them home alone. Talk about endangerment!
I'm loathe to wish ill on anyone, but it's hard to muster much sympathy for the parents. Poor Madeleine; I just hope she was stolen for adoption and not by a child rapist.
