http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2007/12/madeleine-portuguese-police-under.html
Madeleine: Diplomacy pressures PJ
August 14, 2007

The UK tabloids have been full of criticism for the alleged mishandling of the Madeleine investigation by the Portuguese police. Journalists from that nation, however, have argued somewhat differently. An article in the Correio da Manha today argues that it was diplomacy from the British Embassy- not police incompetence- which subverted the early investigation, and prevented officers from persuing anything other than the abduction theory favoured by the PTB. The orders, according to the writer in question, came from no less a source than John Buck, the British Ambassador himself; who called the head of the Policia Judiciaria on the night of Madeleine's disappearance to advise on the direction in which the police work should proceed.
So why is a British diplomat giving orders to a native chief of police? And who gave the word to John Buck in the first place?
'Alípio Ribeiro, national director of PJ, received a call from John Buck, the British ambassador in Portugal, on the night Madeleine disappeared from the Ocean Club, on May 3.
Around 11 p.m., approximately two hours after the child's disappearance had been communicated to the police, Alípio Ribeiro had to interrupt a private dinner in order to listen to the diplomat. That phone call was the first sign that the British were very keen on accompanying the PJ’s actions very closely, and in forcing the investigations to follow the abduction theory.
“The PJ lost too much time investigating the abduction�? a source connected to the investigation told Correio da Manha. The pressure of the British diplomacy apparently only slowed down after the arrival in Portugal of British police agents who gave support to the redirectioning of the investigation to the possibility of murder. The biological evidence found in the apartment were decisive in the changing the inquiry's direction, or, at least, for the PJ to admit that change publicly.'