London Evening Standard/London
Police investigating the disappearance of teenager Alice Gross were facing criticism yesterday for delays in asking Latvia for help in hunting down the prime suspect.
The 14-year-old vanished last month after walking along a canal towpath in Hanwell, west London. A week later convicted murderer Arnis Zalkalns also disappeared.
Detectives did not publicly link the 41-year-old to Alice’s case until last Wednesday.
Yesterday it emerged officers only approached the Latvian authorities for help on Friday, when they sent a “formal” International Letter of Request to obtain Zalkalns’ full file.
Scotland Yard said last week the suspect had left his passport at home in Ealing, suggesting they believed that he must still be in Britain. However, it is understood he could have travelled back to his native Latvia by coach using his national identity card.
There are fears he could have fled there as far back as September 4, when his girlfriend first reported him missing.
Scotland Yard described the investigation as its biggest search operation since the 7/7 attacks on London in 2005. But the force has been criticised for a series of apparent blunders.
Alice’s disappearance on August 28 was not taken over by the Met’s homicide and serious crime command until a week later.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, called on the force to examine the case fully once she had been found. The MP said he was “very concerned” about the delays in escalating the investigation both in Britain and Latvia. He also questioned why the Met had not sought a European arrest warrant.
Zalkalns moved to Britain in 2005, two years after being released from prison having been convicted of murdering his wife Rudite, 22, before dumping her body in a shallow grave outside the Latvian capital of Riga.
The British authorities had no record of the builder’s conviction and he was able to travel freely between the UK and Latvia three times a year.
