‘BRIT POLICE WASTE CASH ON MADDIE’
‘Suspect’ already cleared
BRITISH detectives hunting Madeleine McCann have been accused of chasing a suspect who was cleared years ago.
Portuguese former police inspector Carlos Anjos said the decision to award Scotland Yard an extra £85,000 to find the missing youngster was “shocking”.
Anjos claims the Met is trying to “forcefully place the blame” on a homeless drifter who cannot afford a lawyer.
The suspect was a worker at the Portuguese holiday resort where then-three-year-old Madeleine vanished in 2007 while her parents dined with pals in a tapas bar.
Police say the man had stolen a “handful of things from a bedroom” of an unlocked apartment at noon that day. But he was eliminated from inquiries as he was “far away” when Madeleine disappeared. Portugal’s ex-minister of internal affairs Rui Pereira suggested the new probe was a “reaction of the English authorities” to former detective Goncalo Amara’s court battle with Madeleine’s doctor parents Kate, 49, and Gerry, 48, in Portugal’s Supreme Court. He said: “Nothing else really explains that a new lead was followed now when it is in fact an old lead.’’ A Met spokesman declined to comment.