Madeleine suspect: 'I have no sympathy for parents'

Robert Murat, 33, even believes more people are now praying for police to admit he's innocent than for the four-year-old's safe return.

"I have not thought about Gerry and Kate McCann or what they are going through because all I am bothered about is myself and what is going to happen to me, not them," the expatriate told the Sunday Express newspaper.

"I can't carry on living like this, no human being could," Murat said from his villa, Casa Liliana, which is located 100 yards from where Madeleine was snatched in Praia da Luz on the Algarve.

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"I am an innocent man. I am not a paedophile or the other things I have been called. I have done nothing.

"I wake up with this nightmare every morning and I go to bed with it every night. This has had a terrible effect on my family both here in Portugal and back in Britain.

"I am the only suspect and it could take years for them to release me from the investigation. I was questioned all last week but it's still far from certain what is going to happen.

"They have to find enough evidence to present a judge with a case, and it appears they do not have enough information to do that.

"If they let me go it will look like they have no idea and they do not want to do that. There is a huge difference in the mentality of the Portuguese police and detectives in the UK," Murat added.

Last week Murat underwent four days of interrogation by Portuguese police over contradictions in the alibi he gave for the night of 3 May when Madeleine was snatched from the family's holiday complex.

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"When anything bad happens in Portugal people disappear, they run and they hide and now I understand why they do it.

"I have thought about it but it would not be fair on my family. The law here dates back to the days of fascism and it shows. I am putting my life at risk just by speaking like this.

"At the start of this, people were praying for the little girl to be found but now these same people are wanting me to be cleared. They are thinking about me and my nightmare. The attention is on me.

"I have a four-year-old daughter but I have not been able to see her while all this has been going on."

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Murat says he is trying to lead a normal life despite being under constant police surveillance.

"The police are just going over the same ground over and over again and I am not even allowed to tell my side of the story. It makes me so angry... Certain people think I should be in prison but the police obviously cannot find enough evidence to do that, so why should I be made to live like this?

"I refuse to hide myself away from the world but my fate is in the hands of the police. I can see no light at the end of the tunnel."

Yesterday Madeleine's mother Kate, 38, flew to Britain to join her husband, Gerry, who is meeting child abuction experts.

It is the first time since her daughter's disappearance 73 days ago, Kate has returned to the UK.