By CECÍLIA PIRES
INVESTIGATORS looking into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have not checked the video cameras along the A22 motorway from Lagos and Vila Real de Santo António, The Resident can exclusively reveal.
Euroscut, the company responsible for maintaining and administrating the 130 kilometres of road, the Via do Infante, said the Polícia Judiciária (PJ) has not asked it for data from its motorway surveillance system.
A spokeswoman for the company said there are 18 cameras along the route, one of them in the Lagos service station area, the same area where a different CCTV recorded the couple being investigated by the PJ in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance.
“The cameras monitor images of the motorway between 9am and 6pm, but only record for an hour or two a day,” she said. “However, there is always someone looking at the screens in the control room.”
She added: “The cameras cannot, obviously, record what happens inside cars, or even people’s faces, however, it is possible to identify the type of car and its colour.”
Confidential
The Euroscut cameras are in addition to, and independent of, the four Via do Infante cameras at the four service stations along the route, including the one at Lagos.
On May 4, the first day of Madeleine’s disappearance, the Euroscut system only recorded for one hour, between 11am and noon, although the company would not reveal the location of the camera.
The official owner of the images captured is Estradas de Portugal, but the company refused to release details of the recording, saying this information is confidential and protected under the National Data Protection Laws.
Estradas de Portugal spokesman Paula Ramos Chaves said: “This information can only be disclosed by court order and in very extraordinary situations.” However, nobody has yet asked Estradas de Portugal to co-operate with the PJ on the Madeleine McCann investigations.
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