A British man being investigated over the disappearance of a four-year-old girl in Portugal said he had been made a scapegoat in the case, which has drawn international attention.
Robert Murat has gone into hiding since he was formally made a suspect over the disappearance of Madeleine "Maddie" McCann and his home was searched.
Portuguese police said however that they did not have enough evidence to arrest him.
He told a British television channel: "This has ruined my life and made my life very difficult for my family here and in Britain."
Murat, who had worked for police during the hunt for the girl and also for Sky television, would not appear on screen.
But Sky quoted him as saying: "The only way I will survive this is if they catch Madeleine's abductor ... I've been made a scapegoat for something I did not do."
Police on Wednesday searched the apartment of a Russian man in Praia da Luz, where the girl went missing. SIC television showed officers carrying away two computers from the apartment in the presence of the man and his parents.
Police did not name him, but media reports identified him as Sergei Malinka. Reports described him as being in his 30s and said he had created the Web site for Murat's real estate agency.
Murat was made a formal suspect late on Tuesday after more than 12 hours of police questioning. An unidentified German woman and a Portuguese man were also questioned but released without being identified as suspects.
Portuguese police did not name Murat, saying only that their formal suspect was a 33-year-old man who had cooperated with the investigation.
Detectives "don't have enough elements that could lead to his arrest," inspector Olegario de Sousa told reporters.
Murat lives with his mother close to the holiday complex where Madeleine disappeared on May 3. She had been left sleeping with her twin siblings while her parents ate in a nearby restaurant.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing