Portuguese police focus on Madeleine's parents

By Anna Valderrama

PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal (Reuters) - Portuguese police announced on Friday they had identified a new suspect in their investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and friends said it was the 4-year-old's mother, Kate McCann.

McCann was questioned by police for more than 15 hours on Thursday and Friday and left the police station on Friday as her husband, Gerry, entered to be interviewed separately.

"Kate knows it's possible that she could get arrested," Justine McGuinness, a spokeswoman for the McCanns, said before the police announcement.

Police would give no name, in accordance with Portuguese secrecy laws, but friends of the McCanns had earlier said Kate McCann was about to become a suspect.

"All I can say is there is another formal suspect," police spokesman Olegario de Sousa told Reuters. "We always said new suspects or witnesses could come up, so this is nothing unusual."

McGuinness said Kate had told her that police found blood in a car hired by the couple but there was no confirmation it was Madeleine's blood. The car had been hired 25 days after Madeleine disappeared.

Police received results this week of forensic tests on evidence from various sites including the holiday apartment from which Madeleine vanished.

A British man emerged as the first formal suspect soon after Madeleine vanished on May 3.