In the fourth ‘new’ Madeleine story to break this week, it has been revealed that Scotland Yard detectives are hoping “new technological advances” will nail “stranger” DNA recovered from the holiday apartment seven years ago when the British toddler went missing.
According to both UK’s Daily Mirror and Portugal’s Correio da Manhã, Operation Grange detectives on their latest visit to Portugal met yesterday with officials at Coimbra’s national institute of legal medicine (INML) to discuss new exams on material stored at the institute.
The Mirror talks of “30 strands of hair and other samples” “which could not previously be identified and belong to a stranger”, while CM maintains that, “after analysis of the history of the exams undertaken in the PJ investigation, the British (police) do not know what additional tests they want to carry out”.
Nonetheless, INML president Brízida Martins confirmed that technological advances would effectively allow for more information and that his institute is “available for the realisation of new exams”.
He did stress however that he couldn’t “say for sure that new DNA tests that didn’t yield a conclusive result in 2007 could now lead to an objective result”.
Whatever transpires, authorisation for further tests will require Scotland Yard drawing up a new international letter of request, he added.
While the Mirror puts strong emphasis on “stranger” DNA in its story today, CM reiterates that 2007’s testing “did not reveal anything suspicious”.
This week’s stories have been coming thick and fast. It has also been widely publicised that Scotland Yard’s investigation is now massively “over budget”, with expenses running to as much as €10 million.
Talking to reporters on Wednesday, Brízida Martins concluded: “I wouldn’t like to be that ambitious and say the secret to unlocking the Madeleine McCann case lies in our lab. But if this case was resolved it would be the best solution. And if we could cooperate with that, it would of course be wonderful.”
