Kidnapper probably killed Madeleine because of publicity, says top Portuguese lawyer

Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro said it would have been "natural" for an abductor to have killed the girl after she became the world's most famous missing child.

In a brutally frank assessment of the case, Portugal's most senior lawyer said the publicity campaign launched by Madeleine's parents had probably sealed her fate.

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Mr Monteiro also revealed that the Madeleine investigation was the most expensive in Portuguese history, but admitted that he did not know if there would ever be arrests.

He insisted all lines of inquiry are still open, and that police will continue to throw resources at the case.

But he said: "There is a greater degree of probability of the little girl being dead than of her being alive.

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"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."

Portuguese police have also criticised the McCanns' decision to circulate Madeleine's picture, saying they had opposed it because it might drive a kidnapper to kill her.

But Kate and Gerry McCann, both 39, have maintained that their best hope of finding their daughter was to make sure people knew what she looked like, including the distinctive fleck in her eye.

In a further blow to the couple's hopes of seeing Madeleine again, Mr Monteiro told the Portuguese magazine Visao: "If you asked me at this moment in time if I was going to discover anything, I'd have to say, 'I don't know'."

Mr and Mrs McCann have said that their worst nightmare would be for the case to go unsolved. They would never learn what happened to Madeleine and would live under a cloud of suspicion that they were involved in her disappearance.

The attorney-general refused to say whether he believed the couple were involved. "I analysed the case and all the leads warrant being followed," he said. "No lead excludes the other."

He defended the much-criticised investigation, saying: "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."

McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell described Mr Monteiro's comments as "unhelpful" and added: "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 McCanns' private detectives claim to have handed a dossier of evidence to the police, and are checking alleged sightings of a girl resembling Madeleine with a woman identified as Michaela Walczuch, girlfriend of official suspect Robert Murat.

Portuguese police have dismissed them as "small fry" and claim they have not uncovered anything new.

Miss Walczuch and Mr Murat, both 34, both deny any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.

Workers at the holiday complex where Madeleine disappeared are to be reinterviewed, it is claimed.

Police want to question waiters, cleaners and other staff at the Mark Warner complex in Praia da Luz about the statements they gave in May, to identify possible contradictions.

The workers will also be asked about the behaviour of the so-called Tapas Nine - Kate and Gerry McCann and their friends they dined with on the night of May 3.

Managers at the Ocean Club have set aside an apartment where detectives can speak to workers "discreetly".

The head of the investigation, Paulo Rebelo, also wants to speak to the uniformed police officers who were first at the scene after Mrs McCann raised the alarm.