Lisbon, Portugal – Portuguese police released a suspect they questioned about a missing British girl because there was not enough evidence to file charges against him, an official said Tuesday.
Detectives searched five houses Monday as part of their investigation of the 33-year-old man, identified in media reports as British, and seized some of his belongings, said inspector Olegario de Sousa.
Detectives also questioned two other people as part of the same inquiry into 4-year-old Madeleine McCann’s disappearance in southern Portugal, he said.
The girl vanished May 3 after her parents left her, and her brother and sister, both age 2, sleeping alone while they went to a nearby restaurant within their hotel complex in Portugal’s Algarve region, a popular European tourist destination.
The suspect lives about 100 yards from the hotel where the girl disappeared, De Sousa said.
Police placed the man under formal investigation. In Portuguese law, opening a formal investigation is a first step toward possibly bringing formal charges.
On Monday, police searched a villa where local media say the suspect lived with his British mother. They reportedly took computers and cellphones, and drained the villa’s pool.
