The parents of missing British girl Madeleine McCann returned to a Lisbon court on Wednesday for the last session of their libel case.

A team of legal experts in Lisbon is sifting through nearly 30 000 pages of police evidence on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Madeleine McCann's parents said on Thursday they believe their daughter is still alive, a year after she disappeared while on holiday in Portugal. In an interview with the BBC, Kate and Gerry McCann said they thought she may have been abducted from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve last May.

Images of Madeleine McCann, the British four-year old who went missing six months ago in Portugal, have been printed in a spoof supermarket advertisement by a German satirical magazine, outraging her parents. The "Find Maddie" photo-spread in Titanic has prompted a chorus of complaints in the British media.

The parents of missing Madeleine McCann repaid two instalments of their mortgage with money from the fund set up to help find her, their spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday. But Kate and Gerry McCann stopped taking money from the £1-million "Find Madeleine" fund after they were made official suspects, Clarence Mitchell said.

As the pressure grows on the parents of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann, support from their extended family, who have angrily denounced the police probe, has become stronger. The McCanns -- named as formal suspects by Portuguese police last week -- come from close Roman Catholic working-class families.

The mother of missing British girl Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal four months ago, will be formally declared a suspect on Friday, a spokesperson for the family said. The sudden shift in the investigation came after authorities received forensic evidence from the holiday apartment in the Algarve, where four-year-old Madeleine vanished on May 3.