Sky News reports that the number 3 investigator on the Madeleine McCann case in Portugal is facing charges of torture for trying to force the mother of a missing eight-year-old girl to confess to killing her in 2004:

But to compound the Madeleine investigation further, a senior detective in the hunt is one of the five officers alleged to have extracted the confessions. Goncalo Amaral, who is number three in the Madeleine inquiry, and his officers have been accused of torture, omission of evidence and falsification of documents.

Joana Cipriano, who disappeared three years ago just seven miles from where Madeleine McCann went missing, has never been found. Her mother, who received a 16-year jail sentence for Joana’s murder, claims that Amaral beat her in order to try to force her to confess. SPhotos of her badly bruised face appeared in Portuguese newspapers in 2005. Further details of the torture charges against Amaral can be found in this article from The Portugal News.

According to the Times of London, the chief investigator on the McCann case, Guilhermino da Encarnacao, was also involved in the Cipriano case. On Encarnacao’s involvement in the Cipriano case, the Times reports:

In echoes of the McCann case, the hunt for Cipriano got off to a false start when the Republican National Guard, another police body, failed to seal off the house where Joana was last seen. It was only five days later – after hundreds of police officers, journalists and friends of the family had trampled over the scene, and after relatives had cleaned the house with bleach – that the Judicial Police took over.