Madeleine's mother to be quizzed again by Portuguese police

Last updated at 17:39 13 September 2007

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The mother of Madeleine McCann is to be interviewed again by police investigating her daughter's disappearance.
Portuguese detectives could travel to Britain to quiz Mrs McCann. She was interviewed twice last week and formally declared a suspect after police told her they believed she had killed.
Kate will face 40 key questions about the night her daughter disappeared from their Algarve holiday apartment on May 3, her relationship with the four-year-old and her movements since Madeleine went missing, respected Portuguese daily Publico claimed.
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Kate McCann arrives home in her car today

The development came as Kate McCann has invited social services to check on the welfare of missing Madeleine's twin brother and sister.
She is expected to be visited shortly after telling social workers she wanted them to see that two-year-olds Sean and Amelie are not at risk.
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A police officer escorts Mrs McCann as she drives home

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A distressed Mrs McCann, 39, today briefly left the family home in Rothley, Leicestershire, to collect the twins after a family friend took them for a walk.
Relatives have gathered in the village to support her and husband, Gerry.
Mr McCann's older brother John, 48, who was with the couple at their home today, confirmed the plans. He said: "Kate has invited social services to make sure everything was OK, that was at her behest."
Leicestershire County Council said they could not comment on individual cases.
A Portuguese judge has signed a warrant instructing British police to seize items of evidence from the home of Kate and Gerry McCann.
The police, who could visit the McCanns as early as today, are expected to take Mrs McCann's private diaries, her husband's laptop computer and Madeleine's 'cuddle cat' toy.
Two friends of the McCanns, who were with the couple on the night Madeleine disappeared, are also expected to be questioned again.
A distressed Mrs McCann, 39, today briefly left the family home in Rothley, Leicestershire, to collect the twins after a family friend took them for a walk.
Relatives have gathered in the village to support her and husband, Gerry.
Mr McCann's older brother John, 48, who was with the couple at their home today, confirmed the plans. He said: "Kate has invited social services to make sure everything was OK, that was at her behest."
Leicestershire County Council said they could not comment on individual cases.
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Mrs McCann was rarely seen without Madeleine's favourite toy, Cuddle Cat, after her daughter disappeared

The prosecutors yesterday submitted an "emergency" request to a judge to authorise commandeering the ring-bound journals and the Apple Mac which Mr McCann uses to send emails and update his internet blog.
Police believe something Mrs McCann has written in her diary could unlock the mystery to the four-year-old's disappearance.
Mrs McCann started the diary at her sister-in-law's suggestion to record how the family had battled to look for Madeleine - with the idea that she would show it to her daughter once she was found.
Philomena McCann explained: "I asked Kate to keep this journal because at first the Portugese police were doing very little."
She also revealed that Madeleine's mum washed the little girl's Cuddle Cat within days of her disappearance - and again two months ago.
Police are believed to want to confiscate Madeleine's toys, including the favourite Cuddle Cat, which her mother has cradled since her disappearance.
She said the first wash was to clean off the sun cream and sand of the holiday.
Then it was soiled by Mrs McCann carrying it around all the time.
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Kate and Gerry McCann with their twins Amelie and Sean at the park yesterday

Kate McCann and daugher Amelie on their way from their Leicestershire home to a playground

"It would be extremely distressing for Kate because she has seen it as a symbol of her daughter since she went missing," she said.
"Why on earth do they ask for the toys now? Why didn't they think of this before?"
The toy has already been tested by scientists but further tests are expected to be more stringent.
Police sources have questioned Mrs McCann's decision to wash the toy so soon after her daughter disappeared.
"It's the last thing I'd expect a mother who is devastated at losing her child to do," said a former Scotland Yard detective.
Yesterday it emerged that lawyers in Britain acting for the McCanns have advised them the Portuguese authorities will struggle to press charges that stick.
A close friend said: "The legitimate question to ask Portuguese police is: 'Where is the body? Where's the evidence that Madeleine is dead?'."
The friend said the McCanns' new legal team, based in London, had been working around the clock to "get up to speed on the case".
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Gerry McCann and his two-year-old twin son Sean

The couple's Portuguese lawyer, Carlos Pinto de Abreu, has hit out at his country's judicial system in a scathing interview with a local newspaper in which he declared: "Justice in Portugal is slow and incapable of producing proof."
Friends of the McCanns believe they are the victims of a sinister campaign to frame them for Madeleine's disappearance after police botched the search to find their abducted little girl.
The 39-year-old doctors have strenuously denied ever harming Madeleine and are devastated the hunt for her has been overshadowed by an attempt to "set them up".
But in two days of police interviews in Portimao last week, detectives alleged there was damning evidence that Madeleine had been in the Renault Scenic they hired 25 days after she disappeared. They alleged bodily fluids, blood and hair corresponding to Madeleine's DNA had been found in the boot.
Judge Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias is now sifting through a 4,000-page police dossier as Madeleine's parents face an agonising wait to learn if they will be charged.
He could take "weeks" to study the contents of ten lever arch files, according to a friend of the McCanns, who said: "Our understanding is there's no filtering process whatsoever - everything is in there.
"The judge has had the kitchen sink thrown at him."
The judge will make a decision within ten days on key requests made by the prosecutor, Jose Cunha de Magalhaes e Meneses.
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McCann's lawyers believe it will be almost impossible to press charges without finding the corpse

These requests have not been made public, but are things Mr Meneses now believes need to be done to complete the case.
A source in Portugal claimed that one of the requests was to bring Kate McCann back to be requestioned.
And the whitewashed church in Praia da Luz that became a poignant focus of the McCanns' campaign is expected to be searched, with the judge present.
It still has yellow and green Madeleine ribbons on the pews and altar.
Roads around the church, which had deep holes dug by workmen at the time Madeleine vanished, could also be excavated.
Portuguese sources said the prosecutor wanted police to re-interview the couple's friends and family.
Detectives in the Algarve believe somebody could have helped them dispose of Madeleine's body, although the friends with whom they were on holiday have furiously denied such a "hurtful" conspiracy.
The couple were declared "arguidos", or formal suspects, during police questioning in Portimao last Friday.
They flew out of the country to their home in Rothley two days later.
Last night the McCanns got a boost when the police case appeared to be undermined by a pensioner who is potentially a key witness.
Pamela Fenn, 81, lives above the apartment where Madeleine disappeared and is reported to have told police she heard Madeleine screaming below.
But yesterday she broke her silence to say it was "absolute rubbish" she had made any such claims to police. Mrs Fenn said: "I didn't even know that family was in there."
Sir Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of DNA fingerprinting, said he was prepared to act as an expert witness for the McCanns.
He stressed that DNA matches on their own did not establish a person's innocence or guilt.
Sir Alec told BBC TV's Newsnight: "There are no genetic characters in Madeleine that are not found in at least one other member of the family.
"So then you have an incomplete DNA profile that could raise a potential problem in assigning a profile to Madeleine given that all other members of that family would have been in that car."


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-481485/Madeleines-mother-quizzed-Portuguese-police.html#ixzz154cVcryJ