<!-- google_ad_section_start(name=story_introduction, weight=high) -->STRUGGLING Portuguese detectives have been warned by the Algarve prosecutor to find Madeleine's body or watch her parents "escape" justice, it has been claimed. <!-- google_ad_section_end(name=story_introduction) -->
The extraordinary ultimatum puts even more pressure on police who have failed to turn up any clues to her whereabouts and now admit their whole case is "hanging by a thread", reports the Daily Mail.
It is the latest indication that the flimsy police file against Kate and Gerry McCann is not enough to charge them.
Today it emerged that District Attorney Jose Cunha de Magalhaes e Meneses, who has been studying the 10 volumes of evidence amassed against the couple, has given detectives a stark warning.
A police source claimed: "The District Attorney's office has given police an ultimatum - find Madeleine's body or the McCanns will escape".
The Policia Judiciaria - the equivalent of CID - has received direct instructions from the prosecutor's office to find Madeleine's body "at all costs", the source told newspaper 24 Horas.
<!-- // .story-sidebar -->He said: "It is currently our great priority and operations are being developed to find her, although so far without results. Finding the body is fundamental to solving the case."
However he conceded: "The accusation against the McCanns is hanging by a thread."
The McCanns were declared "arguidos", or official suspects, on Friday September 7, but detectives who believe they accidentally killed Madeleine then staged a cover-up have failed to extract confessions from them.
In a separate development, the most senior prosecutor yet to speak out went on the record today to declare that without a confession or a body, the police case against the McCanns was hopeless.
Antonio Cluny, who is president of the body overseeing Portugal's prosecutors, said: "Without the little girl's body, everything is extremely complicated. There have been cases in which it was possible to obtain a conviction without there being a victim, but there were confessions.
"One cannot accuse a person of homicide without there being very strong evidence. In the Madeleine case, there is no confession and according to what has been made public, the evidence gathered up to now means all theories are still open - from abduction to homicide or a simple accident."
Madeleine vanished from her bed in the McCanns' Mark Warner holiday apartment in Praia da Luz 144 days ago and the McCanns are convinced she was snatched by an abductor.
They still hold out a strong hope that she is alive and will be returned to them. They returned home to Rothley, Leicestershire, after police accused them of killing Madeleine.
Fearing they were being "framed" by the Portuguese, they have hired a firm of ex-SAS and MI6 officers to hunt for their four-year-old daughter.
The McCanns' spokesman, former BBC reporter Clarence Mitchell, gave a press conference in their home village of Rothley and said the couple expected to be cleared "shortly".
He said: "They want to get their names cleared as quickly as possible. They are a lot more positive than they were two or three weeks ago. "During the period of interviews, they did feel isolated.
They know they are innocent, I know they are innocent. They did not harm, let alone kill, her. We are confident they will clear their names shortly."
He added that Mr and Mrs McCann were facing up to the possibility that Madeleine could be dead.
He said: "They are a family facing possible bereavement. They hope desperately that the next phone call is, 'We have found her and she's OK'. "I am not naive but that is still a possibility."
Asked about contact the McCanns have had with Gordon Brown and other ministers, Mr Mitchell replied: "It has been reported that Gerry did have a few conversations with ministers.
With the changing of their status, the inter-governmental status is such that any contact like this has ended. It would be improper.
"There is absolutely no British Government influence in this case. It's for the Portuguese authorities to investigate."
He added: "Gerry and Kate want this to feel like a spirit of cooperation with the Portuguese authorities, rather than adversarial approach
