Portuguese police end search for Madeleine McCann and will send material for analysis in Germany

A portuguese police ended on Thursday, 25, the searches for Madeleine McCann, a British woman who disappeared at the age of three in 2007. The case remains unsolved to this day. The new searches, which began on Tuesday, the 23rd, were requested by the German authorities. Despite not having found concrete evidence at the Arade dam, they and the pieces of clothing and plastic objects that were located at the site, according to the Portuguese newspaper ‘Correiro da Manhã’, will be forwarded to the German authorities after “safeguarding the interests of research still ongoing in Portugal”. The purpose of the operation, which featured advanced technology and radar used to detect explosives, was to find a camera belonging to Christian Brueckner, the main suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance. According to the police, the item would have been stolen from his house and thrown into the dam, which is 50 km from where Madeleine was last seen. There are believed to be pictures of Madeleine and other sexual assaults that Brueckner committed. “Of course there is a certain expectation, but it’s not high,” said promoter Christian Wolters. The region is usually frequented by him and in the 2009 searches a nest egg was found. The searches, which lasted three days, were closely watched by the British and Germans. According to Wolters, investigators are looking for the girl’s body, but they are also looking for anything that might help with the investigation. In 2007, when the British disappeared, the dam where the searches were carried out was full, according to the ‘Morning Post’, different from today when the volume of water is lower because of the drought that attacks the country. Christian Brueckner is trapped in Germany accused of having raped and killed a 72-year-old American lady, and was also accused of five other crimes and sexual offenses committed between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal.

*With information from Reuters