Police May Interview Portuguese Priests in Madeleine Investigation

Two priests who counselled Kate and Gerry McCann over the four months they remained in Portugal may be interviewed by police.

Police are contemplating whether to question Anglican priest Haynes Hubbard and Roman Catholic Father Jose Manuel Pacheco as witnesses, to see if any further information could be gained in their current investigations.

The clergymen became close to the parents of abducted Madeleine McCann after her disappearance on 3 May, and Father Pacheco even gave them keys to the church of Our Lady of the Light to allow them to pray in privacy whenever they wanted.

Over the past week, Portuguese newspapers have speculated that the priests "received information in confession" from the McCanns which could help police in their investigations. However, the claims were not sourced.

Newspapers pointed out that if the couple had disclosed anything privately to Father Pacheco there would be potential conflict between the Catholic Church and the law.

The confidentiality of religious confession is sacrosanct in Catholicism, and would take precedence even over criminal law.

Father Pacheco said: "I find it perfectly normal that police would carry out searches in Praia da Luz, and not excepting the church."

Father Hubbard has already said he believed it to be "ridiculous" to imagine that the church could be used to conceal anything in the Madeleine case.