Madeleine McCann: UK police request Portuguese assistance
Madeleine was aged three when she went missing in May 2007 A letter has been sent to Portuguese authorities requesting help with the UK police probe into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, prosecutors say.
The Daily Mirror said the letter sought permission to arrest three burglars believed to have been working in the resort where Madeleine went missing.
The police said last year the possibility she was snatched by burglars was a key line of inquiry.
Prosecutors and the police would not comment on the details of the letter.
Madeleine, from Leicestershire, was three when she disappeared in May 2007 from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve, where she had been staying with her family.
Between January and May 2007 there had been a four-fold increase in the number of burglaries in the area, police later established.
Police said in October that in the 17 days before she disappeared there was one burglary and one attempted burglary in the block where the McCann family were staying.
Crimewatch appealThe international letter of request was sent last week, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
According to its guidance, "requests for evidence which require a judicial oversight and/or involve a degree of coercion or invasion of privacy usually require a letter of request".
It should be a request to obtain "specific evidence" and not a "fishing expedition", the CPS says.
And when it comes to an investigation, a letter of request "should ideally be no more than the formal request for assistance that has already been agreed in outline with the competent overseas authority".
The CPS previously sent one such letter on behalf of British police in July, when the Met upgraded its review - codenamed Operation Grange - to a formal investigation, in light of new evidence and new witnesses.
At that time, the police said there was a chance Madeleine was still alive and it was investigating 38 "persons of interest".
The search for Madeleine was given fresh impetus in October when a BBC Crimewatch appeal that aired in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands in October led to 5,000 calls.
In November, Met Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said the force was seeking an agreement to set up a "joint investigation team" with the Portuguese authorities.
That came after Portuguese police reopened their inquiry into Madeleine's disappearance in light of "new elements of evidence".
A Freedom of Information request showed that from May 2011 up to 31 August last year, Operation Grange had cost £4.7m, with 29 police officers and eight support staff assigned to the investigation.
- 20:30 Kate and Gerry McCann leave their apartment to have dinner at a Tapas bar
- 21:05 Gerry McCann checks on Madeleine and her siblings
- 22:00 A man is seen carrying a child wearing pyjamas heading towards the ocean
- 22:00 Kate McCann raises the alarm that Madeleine has gone missing
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