Portuguese police to reexamine car in missing Madeleine case

Portuguese police will reexamine the car that was rented by the parents of missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann, amid suspicions that her parents may have killed the child, Portugal's press said on Wednesday.

The police will repeat their analysis of the McCanns' personal effects and search again for Madeleine's body, focusing on the area close to the Playa de la Luz Church where the parents, both observant Catholics, prayed daily for their daughter. The church is a target because the McCanns had been given a key so they could come and go at will.

Kate and Gerry McCann, a couple from the British town of Rothley, were on holiday in Portugal on May 3 when they reported their daughter missing, saying she had disappeared from the hotel room she shared with younger twin brothers while the parents were having a meal just meters away in a tapas bar.

Until last week, police had only named one suspect, Robert Murat, a British man who lived near the hotel from which Madeleine disappeared. He was not charged, and he said he was innocent.

The police named the parents as suspects on Friday, citing traces of blood, hair and saliva found in the boot of the car the couple had rented. Tabloid newspapers in Britain and Portugal had begun a campaign against the parents in August. The McCanns have strongly denied any involvement.

Jose Cunha de Magalhaes Menezes, a Portuguese government-prosecuting judge, received the file on the couple on Tuesday. He has not yet decided whether to proceed against them.