The police in Portugal said sorry to Madeleine McCann’s parents for how they dealt with her going missing when she was three years old.
Madeleine disappeared from a vacation place in the Algarve in May 2007.
A group of important officers from Lisbon went to London earlier this year, according to BBC Panorama.
They said sorry to Gerry McCann, who is Madeleine’s dad, for how the investigators looked into the case and treated his family.
The McCann family has chosen not to say anything about the apology, and they still haven’t found out what happened to their daughter.
In September 2007, four months after Madeleine disappeared, Kate and Gerry McCann were considered suspects in the Portuguese investigation. Both were asked by detectives, who thought they had planned and hidden Madeleine’s body .
Mrs McCann said someone offered her a deal. The deal was that if she admitted to hiding her daughter’s death, she would get a shorter time in prison.
The couple’s status as suspects were removed in 2008, but they continued to be suspected of wrongdoing in Portugal for many years.
Goncalo Amaral, the main detective in charge, was taken off the investigation. He later wrote a book accusing the McCanns of playing a part in their daughter’s disappearance. He said he was protecting his image as a professional.
The Portuguese supreme court dismissed the McCann’s lawsuit against the former detective because of the things he said about them in his book. The couple asked the European Court of Human Rights for help, but they did not win their case in September 2022.
The couple has also faced a harsh and hateful online campaign accusing them of causing Madeleine’s death and trying to hide it.
They also told the BBC that they had given the McCanns information about their ongoing investigation.
The officers helped the German authorities who think that a German man named Christian Brueckner, who is 46 years old, murdered Madeleine McCann.
Hans Christian Wolters, a German prosecutor involved in the case, was glad about the apology from Portugal.
“It’s a positive signal,” he said, also mentioning, “It indicates progress in the investigation of the McCann case in Portugal. ”
Mr Wolters plans to finish investigating Brueckner within the next year. He has not been accused or charged with anything related to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance so far, and he has openly said that he was not involved in her disappearance.
Brueckner lived close to the Praia da Luz resort while the McCann family was on vacation there. He spent time in the area from 2000 to 2017.
The Portuguese investigators declared him as a suspect, and now he is in prison in Germany for seven years. He committed drug trafficking and raped a 72-year-old woman in the same place where Madeleine disappeared in 2005.
Earlier this year, German authorities searched a reservoir in Portugal for three days to find evidence connecting a missing British toddler’s disappearance to Brueckner.
“We believe that he played a role in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and we believe that he killed Madeleine McCann,” said Mr.
Brueckner has been accused of committing three more rapes, sexual assault, and assaulting a child. The five crimes are said to have happened in the Portuguese Algarve. Wolters said they will have a trial in February 2024.
Brueckner’s lawyer, Friedrich Fulscher, stated that his client chose not to say anything, as he had the right to remain silent.
“We understand what is in the files and I believe the charges are built on weak grounds,” stated Mr.
Kate and Gerry McCann have not shared their thoughts on the apology from the Portuguese police. They also remembered their daughter’s disappearance on 3 May, which marked 16 years. They mentioned that they still miss Madeleine a lot and are hoping for a big development in the case.