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Lisbon - The
Portuguese public prosecutor charged on Monday a leading investigator in the
criminal investigation department, marking a turning point in the search for missing
British toddler Madeleine McCann, reports said on Monday.
Goncalo Amarel is suspected of suppressing evidence
in an earlier case focusing on the disappearance of another little girl.
Amaral had been investigating the case of nine-year-old Portuguese national
Joana Cipriano, who disappeared without trace in
southern Portugal
in 2004.
Joana's mother then confessed to killing her daughter to the police. The woman
had allegedly wanted to conceal an incestuous affair with her brother which her
daughter had found out about.
The mother was sentenced to 16 years and eight months imprisonment, although
the daughter's body has never been found.
Officials are said to have forced the woman to confess. The prosecutor accused
Amaral of concealing accusations of torture against four police officers.
He was legally obliged to report the accusations to the judiciary immediately,
sources said.
The police officers rejected the accusations and said they would bring a
counter charge against the public prosecutor. Joana's mother now wants her
trial to be reopened, claiming she had not killed her daughter but sold her
abroad.
The parents of abducted Madeleine, Kate and Gerry McCann, said they were
"shocked" by the accusations against the investigator. They were on
Monday in Morocco
where they intend to ask the public for help in the search of their abducted
girl.
Madeleine disappeared without trace from a holiday compound on the Algarve in southern Portugal more than a month ago. - Sapa-DPA
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NEWS JUNE 2007 |
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