Ouders van Madeleine McCann+Tapas 7 weigeren reconstructie..

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Op vrijdag 6 juni 2008 14:08 schreef yvonne het volgende:

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En zo is het maar net

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Op vrijdag 6 juni 2008 14:44 schreef kahaarin het volgende:

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ja, alle neusjes weer dezelfde kant uit idd.

Peter R de Vries mag er van mij ook wel zelf induiken, geen punt. Misschien dat hij die Engelsen met hun voetjes terug op de grond kan zetten.

Hihi, Ko, heb je de commentaren gezien?

Dit kan imho nog, het is geen sneer naar de ouders, het meisje wordt niet belachelijk gemaakt, het is duidelijk een sneer naar een bepaalde manier van berichtgeving.

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Op vrijdag 6 juni 2008 22:50 schreef Tmaatje het volgende:
Kijk de waarheid mag gezegd worden, ook al is het niet datgene wat de PR machine van de McCanns wil horen. Eerlijk gezegd hoop ik op een internationaal opsporingsbevel asap.

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Let us know when you see mention of Madleine McCann

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santacoloma wrote:
Would be grateful if you could refresh my memory, HawkEyes. We wouldn't like to think there will be another farcical delay, like that of the Rogatory letters. So, once the Prosecutor decides to issue EAWs, will they be served quickly? I should imagine it is a fairly frequent procedure, requiring some urgency in most cases. Will there be any reason at all for the Home Office to hold them up?

The European Arrest Warrant means faster and simpler surrender procedures and no more political involvement. It also means that Member States can no longer refuse to surrender to another Member State their own citizens who have committed a serious crime, or who are suspected of having committed such a crime in another EU country, on the ground that they are nationals.

All Member States of the European Union were required to introduce legislation to bring the European arrest warrant (EAW) into force by 1 January 2004. An EAW may be issued by a national court if the person whose return is sought is accused of an offence for which the penalty is at least over a year in prison or if he or she has been sentenced to a prison term of at least four months. Its purpose is to replace lengthy extradition procedures with a new and efficient way of bringing back suspected criminals who have absconded abroad and for people convicted of a serious crime who have fled the country, in order to forcibly transfer them from one Member State to another for conducting a criminal prosecution or executing a custodial sentence or detention order. The EAW enables such people to be returned within a reasonable time for their trial to be completed or for them to be put in prison to serve their sentence.

The EAW is based on the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions. This means that a decision by the judicial authority of a member state to require the arrest and return of a person should be recognized and executed as quickly and as easily as possible in the other Member States. The European arrest warrant, however, introduces some novelties compared to the former extradition procedures:

* Faster procedures: The State in which the person is arrested has to return him/her to the State where the EAW was issued within a maximum period of 90 days of the arrest. If the person gives consent to the surrender, the decision shall be taken within 10 days.

* Simpler procedures: The dual criminality principle - which means that both the country requesting extradition and the country that should arrest and return the alleged criminal, recognize and accept that what he or she is alleged to have done, is a crime - is abolished for 32 serious categories of offences. These include participation in a criminal organisation, terrorism, trafficking in human beings, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, illicit trafficking in arms, ammunition and explosives, corruption, fraud including fraud pertaining to the financial interest of the European Union, money laundering and counterfeiting of money including the euro. European arrest warrants issued in respect of crimes or alleged crimes on this list have to be executed by the arresting state irrespective of whether or not the definition of the offence is the same, providing that the offence is serious enough and punished by at least 3 years' imprisonment in the Member State that has issued the warrant. For offences which are not in the list or beyond the 3 years' threshold, the dual criminality principle still applies.

* No political involvement: In extradition procedures, the final decision on whether to surrender the person or not, is a political decision. The EAW procedure abolished the political stage of extradition. This means that the execution of these warrants is simply a judicial process under the supervision of the national judicial authority which is, inter alia, responsible for ensuring the respect of fundamental rights.

* Surrender of nationals: EU countries can no longer refuse to surrender their own nationals. The EAW is based on the principle that EU citizens shall be responsible for their acts before national courts across the EU. This means that it will not be possible in principle for a Member State to refuse to surrender one of its citizens who has committed a crime in another EU state on the ground that he or she is a national. On the other hand, it will be possible for a Member State, while surrendering this person, to ask for their return on its territory to serve its sentence in order to facilitate future reintegration.

* Guarantees: The EAW ensures a good balance between efficiency and strict guarantees that the arrested person's fundamental rights are respected. In implementing the framework decision on the EAW, Member States and national courts have to respect the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and to ensure that it is respected. Anyone arrested under an EAW may have a lawyer, and if necessary an interpreter, as provided by the law of the country where he or she has been arrested. If judgement was given in his absence against anyone later arrested under an EAW, he has to be retried in the country requiring his return.

Grounds for refusal:
The surrender of the person can be refused on several grounds (see Arts. 3 and 4 of the Framework Decision) among which:

* the "ne bis in idem" or double jeopardy principle: This means that the person will not be returned to the country that issued the arrest warrant if he or she has already been tried for the same offence.

* amnesty: A Member State can refuse to return a person if an amnesty covers the offence in its national legislation.

* statutory limitation: A Member State can refuse to return a person if the offence is statute barred according to its law (which means that the time limit has been passed and that it is too late under that country's law to prosecute the person).

* the age of the person: A Member State can also refuse to return a person who is a minor and has not reached the age of criminal responsibility under its national laws.

It is also possible for a Member State to execute directly the sentence decided in another Member State instead of surrendering the person to that Member State.

Life sentence:
Where someone arrested under an EAW may be sentenced to life imprisonment, the state executing the EAW may insist, as a condition of executing the arrest warrant, that if sentenced to life, the accused person will have a right to have its personal situation periodically reconsidered.

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I have highlighted the relevant sections to answer your questions, santacoloma. Further, under Grounds for Refusal, since none of these scenarios apply, the process should be straightforward without further intervention from the Home Office.

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British Foreign Office helped the McCann to go back home
vertaling van het artikel op sosmaddie.dhblogs.be gelezen op het 3arguidoforum inclusief commentaren op onderstaande artikelmet en een link naar een eerder artikel van dezelfde journo's: Why did the chickens run away?

Between September 7 and 10, last year, Kate McCann was fighting for her life, according to The News of the World, because Portuguese authorities were trying to frame her. "They want me to lie - I'm being framed”, Kate told the Sunday Mirror. The reason, she explained, was the fact that Polícia Judiciária was “running out of budget for this investigation and want it to end". Another reason, she said, was that Portuguese Police “don't want a murder in Portugal and all the publicity about them not having paedophile laws here, so they're blaming us."

But at the same time, Gerry McCann admitted that he was already informed by his lawyers that PJ “may have cobbled together enough to charge them.” Even being "absolutely confident' there was no evidence to link him and Kate with any suspicion of murder” of their daughter, Gerry admitted the “latest twist of events”, during the first weeks of September, “had left him with 'anxieties". According to the September 9 edition of The News of The World, “the McCann now fear the cops may be about to arrest and charge them. Gerry told us: 'Our lawyer said the weight of it is that, under the Portuguese legal system, they've got enough to move forward against us."

The father of Madeleine McCann considered also the possibility that “sooner or later, there'll be a formal process whereby we can rebut things in court. Then it will all come out. Gerry explained that the McCann were “negotiating with the police” in order “to be allowed to go home to the UK”, after being named as “arguidos”, or formal suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

As those negotiations were going on, the “Foreign Office was 'firing on all cylinders' in its efforts to help the McCann”, as the Telegraph wrote on September 10. And the agreement that allowed Gerry and Kate to go back to the UK was reached through direct contacts between the British Foreign Office, the Portuguese Justice and Foreign Office ministers and PJ, with the help of John Buck, UK Ambassador in Portugal at the time. Justine McGuiness and David Hughes, members of the McCann team of advisers, played also an important role in those contacts.

A source from PJ explained that if the couple had attempted to leave Portugal before the questioning that took place between 7 and 8 of September, the Public Prosecutor's Office had instructed PJ inspectors to stop them and was ready to name them as "arguidos" and impose more severe restrictions on their movements. The Portuguese authorities accepted a “gentlemen's agreement”, after the Foreign Office guaranteed that the couple would return to Portugal, whenever the Public Prosecutor's Office requested their presence.

The sudden change of attitude from the McCann, trying to go back to UK after promising that they would never leave without Madeleine, happened two months after a special British police team came to Praia da Luz, with Eddie and Keela, dogs trained to detect the smell of blood and dead bodies. But one month before being named “arguidos”, the PJ spokesman, Olegário de Sousa, had already revealed, on a interview with BBC, on August 10, that police was following a new line of inquiry which included the possibility of Madeleine being dead.

Duarte Levy & Paulo Reis

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Op zondag 8 juni 2008 12:57 schreef SunChaser het volgende:
Jammer dat ze wegkomen met moord

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McCanns could be off to Strasbourg in two weeks time, 03 June 2008 (Bron)
^{Hello! magazine No. 1024, 10 June 2008 (issue date: 03 June 2008) (No online link)}
McCanns to fight neglect charges

Kate and Gerry McCann have vowed to vigorously contest neglect charges after court documents revealed that they have not yetbeen put in the clear over their missing daughter Madeleine.

Papers released last week show that police in Portugal have failed to rule out homicide, abandonment, concealment of a corpse and abduction. The couple's spokesman Clarence Mitchell told HELLO! "Kate and Gerry have received legal advice both in Portugal and England that they did everything within the bounds of reasonable parenting. They vigorously deny the neglect charges." Kate and Gerry are both still arguidos, official suspects in the investigation.

It was also reported last week that their friends, dubbed the "The Tapas Seven", will not return to Portugal to take part in a reconstruction of Madeleine's disappearance a year ago, days before her fourth birthday. They fear that they too will become suspects and that the exercise will not achieve anything.

Meanwhile, the McCanns are considering heading to Strasbourg in two weeks to bolster support for the campaign, backed by HELLO!, to introduce a European-wide child abduction scheme, based on the AMBER Alert system in the US.

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Op zondag 8 juni 2008 22:49 schreef Tmaatje het volgende:
Dan liever nieuws uit Portugal..

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Op maandag 9 juni 2008 11:54 schreef Smart_ass het volgende:
Ouders zijn zo schuldig als wat.

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UK Ambassador denies contacts between Governments about Madeleine's case
“The only thing I know about the investigation is that Madeleine is still missing”, Alexander Ellis, UK Ambassador in Portugal, told Jornal de Notícias. Alexander Ellis told that what the British Embassy did, in the Madeleine McCann case, was just to “facilitate meetings between the relevant authorities and giving all the necessary support to the British citizens involved in the case.”

Asked if there were any contacts between the British and Portuguese Governments about the case, taking in account the fact that Clarence Mitchell, at the time a UK Prime-Minister's office high ranking official, was sent to Praia da Luz, to help the McCann couple, Alexander Ellis said: “I don't believe. This is a question for Police, not for the Governments, and the authorities have been working with a good coordination.”

But Gordon Brown, speaking to journalists in Lisbon, before the EU summit, on October 2007, said that he was planning to talk, with the Portuguese Prime-Minister about questions related to Madeleine McCann disappearance. The Portuguese Prime-Minister Press Office denied that the question of Madeleine's investigation was ever referred, during the meeting with Gordon Brown. “The only subjects raised during the meeting between Gordon Brown and José Sócrates were related to the EU summit. All the rest is pure speculation”, according to the same source, quoted by Portuguese daily Correio da Manhã. A spokesman for Mr. Gordon Brown denied this and told British Media that prime minister Gordon Brown spoke to his Portuguese counterpart Jose Socrates about Madeleine during the EU summit in Lisbon. Mr Brown’s official spokesman said: “They both agreed what matters was there should be the closest possible co-operation between the Portuguese and British police.”

UK Government also “believes that Durão Barroso is in a very good position” to be the first post-Lisbon Treaty EU President, according to the UK Ambassador. Alexander Ellis is married with a Portuguese and during the two years before being appointed as Ambassador in Lisbon, he was one of the advisers of Durão Barroso, current EU President.

Duarte Levy & Paulo Reis Bron

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211 MEP's sign up for AMBER Alert scheme, 10 June 2008
Hello! magazine No. 1025, 17 June 2008 (issue date: 10 June 2008) (No online link)

Kate and Gerry McCann have won the backing of 211 MEPs in their campaign backed by HELLO! to introduce a Europe-wide child alert abduction scheme based on the US AMBER Alert system. The couple, whose elder daughter Madeleine disappeared in Portugal more than a year ago, need a total of 393 signatories by the end of July.

Politicians sponsoring the move in the European Parliament are still confident that they will reach their goal. A spokesman for the McCanns said "They will be urging every MEP to sign in coming weeks".

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11.6.08
European police organizes a child kidnap simulation
Portuguese and Spanish police officers will participate, as observers, on a simulated child's kidnapping, to take place on June 12. The simulation was proposed by the French Justice minister, Rachida Dati, in order to test the coordination of the authorities of all EU countries in these kind of crimes. The simulated kidnap will take place in France. A child from Luxembourg will be “kidnapped” by two police officers, who will try to drive her from France through Belgium, to an unknown destiny, using a car with a Dutch licence plate. Police from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland will participate in the attempt to trace, find and arrest the “kidnappers”. UK police was also invited as an observer, but refused the invitation. Duarte Levy & Paulo Reis Bron

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"because its 'only' a foreign child being abducted and driven across Europe, they are not interested unless it is a Brit or relates to Brits, and of course that would never happen in the UK, children are routinely left in unlocked houses while parents dine out didnt you know? left in prams outside shops, such a safe place...."

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"They only trigger this plan if they have precise indications (plates for exemple). As it's an exercise, they want to see if, with only the country's plate, the car can be stopped at borders. There are borders between Belgian, France, Holland, Germany and Luxembourg. You usually have to slow down and not to stop. But sometimes (terrorist alert for example, or here, abduction plan) there are policemen and you have to stop and show your papers if required.

I said on other threads that IMO, the McCanns wanted to shortcut the French system already presented last year by Rachida Dati to the European Parliament, only for the personal purposes we know. Apparently it's not a concerted plan between the French and the McCann/British MEPs to implant a new Amber Alert because there is no British participation ( confirmed in Levy's article) which is rather strange if we consider they said that the Amber should be introduced in Europe."

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There was a report in the Portuguese press a few weeks ago saying that the PJ were going over the case file one last time to be certain they had not missed anything before handing it off to the public prosecutor's office for a decision on whether or not charges will be laid against the McCanns.

This decision will lie primarily with Jose Cunha Magalhaes e Meneses, the public prosecutor in Portimao, and Luis Bilro Verão, another experienced public prosecutor brought in last fall from Evora to work with Mr. Magalhaes e Meneses, supported, of course, by their respective staffs. The final call will not be up to Paulo Rebelo or anyone else from the PJ; that is the way it is with these things.

We do not know at this point just what evidence is in the investigative file, but there are a few things that can be said about the likely outcome:

(1) The McCanns could be charged with neglect for leaving Madeleine and the twins alone. It is also possible that Jane Tanner and Rob O'Brien could face similar charges, as could Matthew and Rachel Manpilly Oldfield. Charges against the Paynes would seem to be less likely, because according to press reports they had a working baby monitor which they used when they left their children alone to go out to dinner. Whilst it would not be satisfactory to many of us here as a way to monitor the health and safety of a small child left alone and otherwise out of sight and sound, it is not so different from a baby listening service; therefore, in my opinion, it is unlikely that the Paynes would be charged.

(2) If the PJ have evidence that Madeleine is dead (if, for example, forensic testing showed that the hairs found in the hire car came from a dead person, and testing of mitochondrial DNA from the same hairs established Madeleine as the likely donor), then the big question arises: How did her death occur? Was it purest accident, something that would have been very unlikely to have happened if she had been supervised, and therefore appropriate as the basis for a charge of neglect resulting in death? Was it what we would call manslaughter? Or was it murder, with all that would imply?

If Madeleine is dead, the reason for her death is crucial, as it could provide a motive for the cover-up of her death, improper disposition of her corpse, lying to the police, and possibly the Portuguese equivalent of perverting the course of justice or conspiracy against more than just the McCanns. There would also be the possibility of fraud charges in the UK arising out of the creation of the fund. But the prosecution cannot just theorise about it; whatever elements of the crime form the basis of charges must be proven.

This, I believe, is the central dilemma at this point. Without a confession, witness testimony, or Madeleine's body, it is going to be difficult to prove the manner of her death.

This is why some of us (I believe that Hawkeyes and others also agree with this) have been saying for some time that we believe that, if the PJ can prove that Madeleine is dead, the McCanns should be charged with negligence resulting in death. This is a lesser charge than either manslaughter or premeditated murder, but it does not appear to require proving the manner of Madeleine's death, only that she is dead, and that her death is the result of negligence on the part of her parents in leaving her alone and unsupervised. After all, one charged with such an offence could not very well say in one's defence, "No, you have got it wrong. She did not die as a result of being left alone; we, in fact, murdered her." Similarly, there would seem to be no percentage to make a defence argument to the effect of, "No, she did not die whilst alone on the night of 3 May; she had been dead since the preceding evening." If it is a difficult situation for the prosecution, it could also be the ultimate choice between a rock and a hard place for the defence.

The statute of limitations in this case is more than a decade away from expiring. One thing the PJ could always do is wait to see if Madeleine's body turns up. If she is buried on land, more than likely she will be found at some point; that often happens in missing-body cases. Some hiker in an out-of-the-way place will stumble across a shallow grave, someone's dog will bring home what appears to be a human bone, someone out searching the hills for a lost animal will stumble across a piece of clothing or some other trace of her, or unusually heavy winter rains will unearth her grave, and she will be found. Finding Madeleine's body at this point might or might not make it possible for forensic pathologists to determine the cause of her death. For example, if the hyoid bone in her throat is fractured, that would indicate strangulation. If her skull were fractured, however, it would be hard to determine whether that was the result of accident, manslaughter, or murder. Moreover, if her body were dumped at sea, then recovering it is much less likely.

I wanted to bring this up now, because when one starts thinking it through, it seems to me that it becomes much clearer why the prosecution is taking its time and what they are up against. I am far from in despair about the case, but this is no easy matter; it is a very difficult decision, and those of us who are praying people might do well to pray for Mr. Magalhaes e Meneses and Mr. Bilro Verão, that God will give them grace to decide aright. The lives of not only the McCanns, but the other tapas 7 and their extended families will be unalterably changed one way or the other by the decisions made in the next few weeks and months. There are 8 other very small children, for example, whose parents are involved in this to one degree or another, if only as witnesses.

Assuming that there is nothing shocking that we do not know about and the summarisation of the situation above is more or less correct, what do YOU think the prosecution should do? Wait and hope that Madeleine's body can be found or that there will be some other sort of break in the case? Lay charges now? If so, what do you think the charges should be?

As I have said in other posts, I am not writing this because I have the answers, but because I know I do not and am interested in what other posters think.

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Parents of Maddie in Strasbourg SOS Maddie (French language site)
^{Duarte Levy 13 June 2008, Thanks to 'FrenchEuropean' for translation}
Kate and Gerry McCann have confirmed this afternoon that they will make the trip next Tuesday to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, as authors of a declaration calling for the creation of a European alert system for missing children, and will try to persuade 182 MPs to sign the document. The McCanns played no role in drafting the statement - an initiative of five parliamentarians - but the couple had made its submission to Brussels, despite protests from several MPs.

The document adds nothing new to the intentions of Parliament or the creation of a European warning system that has been under consideration for several years. France, which took the rotating presidency in July, regardless of the statement made in Brussels on April 10, had already made known its intention to approve a European system similar to that which exists in France.

"Until now we have 211 signatures and we need the signature of 393 MEPs, a simple majority in Parliament," said the spokesperson of Kate and Gerry McCann, Clarence Mitchell. The couple had planned to meet several MEPs in private before concluding their day with the usual press conference.

Introduced to Parliament by the Conservative Edward McMillan-Scott, vice-president of Parliament, Gerry and Kate McCann, arguidos in the investigation into the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine, had already been heavily criticised in Brussels by several parliamentarians, deeming the visit of the couple inappropriate.

Recently, the couple had found a way not to make the trip to Portugal to participate in the reconstruction of events surrounding the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine, as the Portuguese authorities had demanded.

The McCanns are there for nothing

A statement originally submitted on April 10 at the European Parliament in Brussels was not prepared or suggested by the McCanns but the parents of Madeleine, with the support of the British Government, have won the right to attend despite their status as arguidos in Portugal.

Edward McMillan-Scott, Roberta Angelilli, Glenys Kinnock, Evelyne Gebhardt, and Diana Wallis are the five MEPs who originated the document which proposes emergency cooperation between the member states of the European Union to find missing children.

The document calls on member states to conclude cooperation agreements with all the border states in order to give itself the means to launch early warning in the territories concerned. Despite the importance of the guidelines proposed by the document, it is still far from an agreement among all member states.

Yesterday, France - a country where the device Abduction Alert has already proved its efficency, organized a mock abduction in collaboration with Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The exercise was conclusive and allowed four organizers to test their reaction, but also working with the media.

The policies of Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Germany and the Czech Republic participated as observers. The United Kingdom, who were invited, chose not to participate.

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New blog from Gerry, 13 June 2008 First of all apologies for the long gap since my last blog. We are still very busy and the last 2 weeks all four of us have been laid low with a viral illness.

Our investigative team have been very busy working through all the information which has been coming in through the new hotline number and the e-mail addresses – see investigation page. A lot of this information is undoubtedly relevant to the investigation and every piece of information will be followed up- a very time consuming process – so please be patient with us! We are planning a facility to allow the upload of pictures of people who were in the Algarve leading up to Madeleine’s abduction. In the interim pictures can be e-mailed to investigation@findmadeleine.com

The campaign for a Europe wide Amber alert continues. There is approximately one month left to get the majority of MEP’s to sign the written declaration. Edward McMillan- Scott has told us that so far there are 211 signatures therefore we need another 182. Thank you to everyone who has written to MEP’s. Some of the responses that have been sent display a complete lack of understanding in what we hope to achieve. For example some have said they will not sign because such a system is already in place with the 116 000 hotline number. Firstly this number for missing children is only operational in one out of 27 European countries (Greece) so far. Secondly the number does not mean an Amber alert will be issued for an abducted child as no such system exists- hence the written declaration. Thirdly we are looking for cross border cooperation between member states when a child is abducted. Hopefully with more lobbying, we can get the declaration accepted.

We are continually looking to improve the website. Over the next few weeks you should notice some changes. We are planning to have new messages on the home page from Kate and myself. The blog may change to a findmadeleine update, there will be new pages displaying the posters in full and further details of local fundraising events. With the holiday season approaching, we would be really grateful if people would once again download Madeleine posters from the website (available in many different languages in how to help/downloads section) and take them with them for distribution and display. 1 in 6 children are recovered after someone has recognised them from a poster!

Finally, we would like to say thank you to everyone for their continued help and kindness, the many letters, messages of support and prayers. It is reassuring and uplifting that Madeleine is in so many people’s thoughts and prayers even at this stage.

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McCann couple goes to Strasbourg for a last ditch stand
Gerry and Kate McCann will be in Strasbourg next Tuesday in order to try to secure enough support from Members of the European Parliament for a “written declaration” concerning the creation of a European Amber Alert system covering all 27 EU states. But, in fact, this idea was originally proposed by the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, Mr Franco Frattini, in 2006: a detail never mentioned by the McCanns, their media advisers nor by Clarence Mitchell. Mr Frattini proposed that each country should establish an EU alert system, but it was not an initiative for the European Parliament’s legislature.

However, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Bryan, a UK top ranking police officer, who is the Association of Chief Police Officers head of missing people, told the media in May 2007 that “there was no need to emulate the US system of immediate information broadcasts once children have been reported missing.”

According to the Times on-line edition, “Mr Bryan congratulated the McCanns on doing a 'sterling job' in raising the issue of how police deal with child abductions, but he said that police would rather use other investigative techniques to trace children before going public and potentially alerting abductors.”
The UK already has a national alert system for missing children, as Richard Bryan told the Times, “that has been in place since 2003 in Sussex and it was rolled out nationally by 2006. We have only had to use it on three occasions.”
Since 2006, Mr Frattini’s initial idea has taken shape. In February 2007, the European Commission decided to ask all member states to reserve a dedicated set of national phone numbers starting with “116”. The idea was that they should be used as a hotline in the event of a missing child. So far, 10 EU countries have adopted the idea, but the UK is not one of them.

On April 21, following a meeting with the McCanns, five Members of the European Parliament (Edward McMillan-Scott, Roberta Angelilli, Glenys Kinnock, Evelyne Gebhardt and Diana Wallis) submitted a written declaration to the European Parliament concerning “Emergency Cooperation in Recovering Missing Children.” The declaration “calls on Member States to introduce a missing child alert system” and asks for the creation of a “common organisation to provide assistance and training” to police forces in the 27 EU countries.

In order to have the “written declaration” sent to the EU President and published, the McCanns still need the signatures of 182 more Members of the European Parliament to reach the required number of 393. The “written declaration” is just a way to “launch or relaunch a debate on a subject that comes within the EU’s remit”, but it has no legal implications for the EU state members. Duarte Levy and Paulo Reis