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London: Madeleine McCann could still be found alive, her father said on Friday.
Gerry McCann said that a 30,000-page file from the police dossier on his daughter's disappearance showed "absolutely no evidence" that she had been harmed.
In his first public statement since the file was passed to his family last week, he made a fresh appeal for information or details of suspected sightings from the public.
"It will be clear to everyone now that there is absolutely no evidence that suggests Madeleine has been seriously harmed," said McCann, in a blog on the Find Madeleine website. "Knowing this, we strongly believe that Madeleine is out there and can be found."
The police files, which were put together during an investigation lasting more than 14 months, included forensic reports, witness statements, police intelligence and details of hundreds of possible sightings of Madeleine, who vanished four days before her fourth birthday.
They outlined various leads followed by investigating officers, none of which took them to conclusive proof of her whereabouts or the cause of her disappearance from the apartment where the family were staying in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May last year.
The investigation's final 58-page report, written by the Portuguese public prosecutors who ruled on July 21 that the case should be shelved, concluded that it was "most probable" Madeleine was now dead, but said police had not been able to prove this.
Private detectives
Private detectives working for McCann and his wife, Kate, are following leads gleaned from the files, including a series of possible links to Belgium and Holland.
Hopes were raised earlier this month when CCTV footage from Brussels showed a girl resembling Madeleine, but a father came forward to explain it was his daughter.
Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, said: "It is over three weeks since we learned that the Portuguese authorities had closed the investigation to find Madeleine, lifted our arguido status and ended judicial secrecy.
"Of course whoever is responsible for Madeleine's abduction must, and can, be found to prevent them from putting another child and family through the misery we have suffered."
McCann urged anyone who originally provided information to the Portuguese police to contact the family's own team of detectives by e-mailing investigation@findmadeleine.com or calling 0845 838 4699.
- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008
disclosures
On the police file
- Detectives knew there was no conclusive evidence against the McCanns three days before they made them suspects.
- Kate McCann refused to answer 48 questions when interviewed as a suspect. She wrote a letter begging for an end to the "war" between the family and investigators.
- The Metropolitan Police passed on a tip-off suggesting Madeleine may have been kidnapped to order by a Belgian paedophile ring.
- A Briton contacted police after seeing a child resembling Madeleine, asleep on a train from Brussels to Antwerp. She is said to have looked as if she could have been drugged and was with a balding 6ft white man aged about 40.
- Madeleine could have been abducted by a stranger, seen by a British holidaymaker and a British expat, loitering around the family's holiday resort.
- Pictures of the stranger and descriptions were not circulated by police.
- The apartment at the Ocean Club resort from which Madeleine vanished was used by holiday-makers for nearly two months before police sealed it off as a permanent crime scene.
- A judge refused to let Portuguese police bug the McCanns' conversations.
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