Fresh location being searched in Maddy McCann case
Portuguese police have revealed they will resume the search for missing toddler Madeleine McCann who disappeared in the country’s Algarve region in 2007.
Portugal’s Judicial police released a statement confirming local media reports that they would conduct the search at the request of the German authorities and in the presence of British officials.
A spokesperson from the fire brigade said police were preparing to start searches at a dam in the southern region of Algarve about 50km inland from a beach resort where Madeleine disappeared from a rented apartment while on a family holiday.
On May 22, Reuters TV footage showed police erecting tents and cordons in the area by the Arade dam, roughly 50km from Praia da Luza, where the three-year-old was last seen alive.
Portugal’s investigative Judicial Police overseeing the operation declined to comment.
Another source familiar with the investigation was not confident there would be a breakthrough, saying, “It will come to nothing”.
In mid-2020, German police jailed German citizen Christian Brueckner, a 45-year-old convicted child abuser and drug dealer who was in the Algarve in 2007, for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same area of the Algarve where Madeleine went missing. He was identified as a suspect in Madeline’s disappearance but has denied any involvement.
Brueckner remains under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case but hasn’t been charged.
German police said in June 2020 that Madeleine was assumed dead and that Brueckner was likely responsible for it.
In April, a German court dismissed additional charges against him related to other Portuguese child rape and sexual assault cases that led to German prosecutors no longer having jurisdiction to investigate the McCann case.
Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann were questioned by Portuguese police as formal suspects in 2007 but ruled them out the following year due to lack of evidence that cleared them of any involvement.
The parents continue to campaign to attract attention to their daughter’s disappearance, and British public figures from business tycoons to authors and soccer stars have made appeals for information.
Rewards for finding Madeleine have reached several million dollars.
Image credit: Getty