Following the latest hue and cry about Scotland Yard detectives being ‘on the ground in the Algarve’ once again, news comes that Portugal has finally received the International Letter of Request from UK thought to centre on three burglars that British police feel should be questioned.
Portugal’s Attorney General’s office has confirmed that the letter will now be forwarded to a court in Portimão “tasked with investigating the newly-reopened case in Portugal” – but there is no indication of exactly when the letter would be sent, or indeed when it will be actioned.
It is now a good two weeks since news that investigations were centring on the burglars flashed across the world’s news services.
As many point out, the three men in question have had good time to make themselves scarce. Nonetheless, the inference is that British police feel the men “made an unusually high number of calls to each other” in the hours following Madeleine’s abduction – and mobile phone records show they (or at least their phones) were all in Praia da Luz on the evening that Madeleine went missing.
