KEY POINTS:
MONCHIQUE, Portugal - Portuguese police on Thursday searched an animal crematorium about 50km from the Praia da Luz resort where four-year-old Briton Madeleine McCann went missing four months ago, its owner said.
"They asked me three times whether I knew or had spoken to the parents of the girl," said Evert Hendrik, the owner of the crematorium. "But it's impossible (for me to have known them)," he told Reuters.
Madeleine disappeared on May 3 from a holiday apartment in the southern Portugal resort. Portuguese police have declared her parents suspects in the case, and the public prosecutor has passed the case to a criminal judge who will decide whether there are grounds for a trial.
Madeleine's parents, now at home in England, have denied any involvement in her disappearance and say they are convinced she is still alive.
Hendrik said Portuguese authorities ordered the closure of the crematorium in 2006.
Two plainclothes police officers entered the crematorium on Thursday and spent about 30 minutes on the premises, including going inside the furnace. One of them filmed the building.
They declined to comment on whether they were searching for Madeleine.
Police have pursued a number of leads, including the possibility that Madeleine might be dead or might have been seized by a paedophile ring.
There is one other suspect, a Briton living in Praia da Luz. His house has been searched twice but he has not been arrested.
The McCanns launched a huge publicity campaign to find their daughter, who vanished a few days before her fourth birthday.
- REUTERS
