Attorney General's Office received no request for assistance judiciary over Maddie 5 July 2013

http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2013/07/attorney-generals-office-received-no.html

The Attorney General’s Office has ascertained, this Thursday, that “no request for mutual judiciary assistance has been received” from the British authorities, within the scope of the investigation that has been opened in London into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in the Algarve, in 2007.

In a reply to news agency LUSA, the Attorney General’s Office clarified that “the obtaining of evidence, in Portugal, presupposes the presentation of a mutual judiciary assistance request, usually known as rogatory letter, whose execution has to be authorized by the Portuguese judiciary authorities”.

“The execution of the request has to be integrally assured by the Portuguese authorities, whether the judiciary or the police, as sovereign authorities that they are. The British authorities cannot act, on their own, in Portugal”, the Attorney General’s Office states.

It is added that if “their traveling to Portugal is allowed in order to assist the Portuguese authorities in the execution of the aforementioned mutual judiciary assistance request, a participation that is carried out in the role of an assistant”, the British police “cannot direct any questioning or carry out any diligence, of their own initiative, in Portugal”.

Meanwhile, the authorities in London have confirmed that there are Portuguese citizens among the 38 persons of interest that the British police wishes to question within the investigation that was opened in that country into the disappearance of the little British girl Madeleine McCann, which took place in Praia da Luz, in Lagos, Algarve, on the 3rd of May 2007.

Several weeks ago, the British press had already advanced the possibility that Scotland Yard would open its own investigation into the case, following the review that was opened in 2011 after the intervention of prime minister David Cameron.

At that time, the police confirmed that a delegation of high ranking officials from the Crown Prosecution and British detectives visited Portugal in mid-April in order to discuss the next steps to take with the Portuguese authorities.

The parents and another British citizen, Robert Murat, were made arguidos by the Portuguese judiciary authorities in July 2007, but on the 21st of July of 2008, the Attorney General’s Office ordered the suspicions to be archived, which ended the investigation.

The Portuguese Public Ministry has always admitted reopening the case if new data about the child’s disappearance appears.

in Jornal de Notícias, 05.07.2013