Search for Madeleine McCann will resume in coming days, say Portuguese police

Portuguese police said they will resume searching for Madeleine McCann, the British toddler who disappeared in the country’s Algarve region in 2007, in the next few days.

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. 

Earlier on Monday, police were seen erecting tents and cordons in an area by the Arade dam, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Praia da Luz, where the 3-year-old was last seen alive.

British, Portuguese and German police are still piecing together what happened when the toddler disappeared from her bed in the southern Portuguese resort on May 3, 2007. She was in the same room as her 2-year-old twin brother and sister while her parents had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.

In mid-2020, Germany’s police identified Christian Brueckner, a 45-year-old German citizen who was in the Algarve in 2007, as a suspect in the case. Brueckner has denied any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.

The suspect hasn’t been charged in the McCann case, in which he is under investigation on suspicion of murder. He spent many years in Portugal, including in the resort of Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance there in 2007. He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.

Last year, a German public prosecutor announced charges against Brueckner “for several sexual offenses he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between Dec. 28, 2000, and June 11, 2017.” 

“The accused is the same person who is being investigated on suspicion of murder in connection with the disappearance of the then 3-year-old British girl Madeleine Beth McCann from an apartment complex in Praia da Luz in Portugal on May 3, 2007,” public prosecutor Hans-Christian Wolters said in October.