Madeleine probably dead: Portuguese Attorney General

LONDON: Madeleine McCann, the British toddler who went missing from her parents' holiday apartment in Praia da Luz more than six months back, is probably dead, Portuguese Attorney General has said.
 
Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro said that the publicity campaign launched by Madeleine's parents Gerry and Kate McCann
had probably sealed her fate after she became the world's most famous missing child.
 
"There is a greater degree of probability of the little girl being dead than of her being alive. Would an abductor, with all this publicity and with the whole world having Madeleine's photo, still demand a ransom?"
 
"If it is an abduction, it is natural that the abductor killed her," the 'Daily Mail' reported here on Friday, quoting the top Portuguese government lawyer as saying.
 
Mentioning that the Madeleine probe's one of the most expensive in Portuguese history, Monteiro insisted that "all lines of inquiry are still open", and "police will continue to throw resources at the case".
 
"We have done everything. We have spent in resources, on the Madeleine case, what we haven't spent on any other. In 40 years as a magistrate, I have never seen such a high profile case as this one," he said.
 
However, the McCanns' family spokesperson Clarence Mitchell has described Monteiro's comments as "unhelpful".
 
"We still firmly believe that Madeleine is alive. Our investigators are working on that basis. They too have stated that they are confident that they will find her alive soon," the spokesperson was quoted as saying.