DNA tests on a drink bottle taken from a Belgian café where police are investigating a sighting of Madeleine McCann have failed to produce a match with the missing four-year-old.
However, local reports said Belgian detectives had not ruled out the possibility that Madeleine was seen at the café, because the DNA matched that of a man.
There is an interesting report in The First Post that says
Police have known "for a month" that Madeleine had died in the apartment,
it is widely reported. The tabloid newspaper 24 Horas says that the police are
looking for Madeleine's body in the sea, helped by English sniffer dogs.According to another paper, Jornal de Noticias, police want to examine inconsistencies in the statements of Kate and Gerry McCann, who were interviewed separately late into the night early on in the investigation. In particular, they want to focus on a three-hour period in which only the McCanns saw Madeleine.
The Guardian says:
Local officers have refused to confirm or deny the speculation
which on Tuesday forced the McCanns to give a television interview insisting
that they retained confidence in the inquiry. But if the couple managed then to
contain their exasperation, one of their friends has not. Rachael Oldfield, who
was among the party having dinner with the couple when Madeleine vanished,
yesterday described the speculation as "very hurtful and all rather ludicrous".
"I think there are some leaks coming from the police but a lot of what I
have read recently has been completely untrue," she told the London Evening
Standard. "It is difficult to defend ourselves because the investigation and
everything in it is confidential." Of the reported scrutiny of emails she said:
"It's just made up."
The Belfast Telegraph actually has quite a balanced report on the story.
