Had they been illiterate Portuguese peasants they would be doing time yet. The fact that they are innocent would not have provided any protection for them.
I think it is well past time that Madeleine be given her day and police investigations be allowed to proceed in whichever direction the evidence leads.
As we have seen - never at any time did it veer towards her parents except when the shattering error of the dogs was engineered to that end.
“ British police helped to "develop evidence" against Madeleine McCann's parents as they were investigated by Portuguese police as formal suspects in the disappearance of their daughter, the US ambassador to Portugal was told by his British counterpart in September 2007.
The meeting between US ambassador Al Hoffman and the British ambassador, Alexander Wykeham Ellis, took place a fortnight after Kate and Gerry McCann were formally declared arguidos, or suspects, by Portuguese police. The McCanns have said that there was "absolutely no evidence to implicate them in Madeleine's disappearance whatsoever."
In a diplomatic cable marked confidential, the US ambassador reported: "Without delving into the details of the case, Ellis admitted that the British police had developed the current evidence against the McCann parents, and he stressed that authorities from both countries were working co-operatively."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/dec/13/wikileaks-madeleine-mccann-british-police