Maddie: the “speculation” does not reopen the investigation

Magalhães e Meneses - one of the magistrates coordinating the process

In a reply sent today to Lusa, the Portuguese news agency, the Public Prosecutor Office qualified all the information published in the press regarding the British paedophile, Raymond Hewlett, as “speculation”.
The presumed suspect, identified and sentenced as a paedophile by the British authorities in cases dating back to the 70s, has admitted that he was in the Algarve the night of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, but the Prosecutor still considers that the information is not sufficient to reopen the investigation.
In the reply sent to the news agency, the Public Prosecutor Office has confirmed being “alert to the signs that are appearing” and ready to reopen the investigation “when concrete facts emerge that the magistrates coordinating the process consider important and credible”. According to the Public Prosecutor, the “speculation, opinions or comments are not sufficient to reopen the investigation”.
Hewlett, aged 64 and in the final phase of a terminal cancer, is not the first “suspect” identified in the British press, but he has become the centre of attention. Clarence Mitchell, spokesperson for Kate and Gerry McCann, has convinced an English newspaper this week not to reveal the photos of two presumed suspects of Portuguese and German nationality. The tabloid was getting ready to identify the two men as “principal suspects” but the specialist in communication and public relations has rejected this information.

Português – Français

Filed under: Madeleine McCann, Maddie, Madeleine McCann, Magalhães e Menezes, PJ, Portugal, Public Prosecutor Office