Outrage as newspaper claims Kate McCann was MI5 agent when Maddie went missing

A Portuguese newspaper has outrageously claimed Kate McCann was a secret agent when her daughter Madeleine went missing.

Portuguese newspaper Sol, which sells more than 33,000 papers a week, has suggested Kate was an MI5 agent, among other wild conspiracy theories about the family.

Experienced Portuguese journalist Jose Antonio Saraiva claims a female doctor contacted him insisting Maddie's disappearance was linked to her parents' suspected MI5 membership.

He explained a female genetics doctor named H Santos identified Kate as an MI5 agent, and singled out Gerry McCann as a potential spy as well.

Kate and Gerry McCann. Photo / Getty Images

Saraiva claimed their 'suspected' MI5 links explain the then UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown's decision to send a British Ambassador to the resort at the time Maddie vanished.

He also wrongly claimed Gerry McCann and Gordon Brown were old schoolmates, saying: "This would explain the immediate dispatch to Portugal of a representative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"It was said that Brown did it because he was Gerry's schoolmate. But this explanation doesn't wash.

"The English are very formal and there's not the cronyism there that characterises southern Europe.

"A minister doesn't send an official representative to find out about the disappearance of a little girl because he went to school with her father."

Madeleine Beth McCann disappeared on the evening of May 3, 2007 from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal. Photo / Getty Images

The bed Maddie McCann was sleeping in the night she disappeared. Photo / Police

In 2018, disgraced ex-Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral claimed MI5 spies helped cover up Maddie's death and disappearance.

Amaral, the initial lead investigator, was sacked in October 2007 for criticising British police and criticising secret agents for their alleged "involvement".

The McCanns have furiously denied any wild consporacy theories and have maintained they weren't involved in the disappearance of their daughter Maddie.

Kate has always maintained Maddie was abducted. The McCanns took Amaral to court over his controversial claims in his 2008 book The Truth of the Lie.