Authorities scour Portuguese scrubland as search for Maddie McCann begins
Portuguese and German police on Tuesday launched joint searches of a "vast" area in Portugal's southern Algarve region for new evidence related to the 2007 disappearance of three-year-old British child Madeleine McCann.
Almost two decades on, investigators in the UK, Portugal and Germany are still piecing together what happened on the night the toddler disappeared in the Algarve town of Praia da Luz. She was in the same room as her brother and sister while their parents, Kate and Gerry, had dinner with friends outside.
Portugal's investigative Judicial Police had said on Monday they would execute search warrants this week at the behest of the public prosecutor's office in Germany's Braunschweig.
In 2022, German authorities formally identified German national Christian Brueckner as an official suspect in the case.
A source involved in the search operation said the targeted area was "vast" with police using ground-penetrating radar across several hectares.
The scale of the searches could be the most extensive since the initial investigation was closed in 2008.
The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) told Reuters it was assisting Portuguese law enforcement with "criminal procedural measures", declining to provide further details.
Fresh but relatively focused searches were ordered by Portuguese, British and German police of scrubland, wells and reservoirs in 2014, 2020 and 2023.
None of these searches were confirmed to have yielded significant evidence.
A van belonging to Portugal's Maritime Police also arrived for the search.
That force has jurisdiction over coastal areas and took part in previous searches of beaches, wells and reservoirs using specialist divers.
The road the police cordoned off is located close to a golf course and less than one kilometre from the beach.
The search area was close to a property that Brueckner lived in, a neighbour told Reuters in 2020, though when was unclear.
German police said in June 2020 that Madeleine was assumed dead and Brueckner, in his 40s, was probably responsible. He has denied responsibility.
His sentence runs until September, meaning he is set for release unless prosecutors find enough evidence to charge him over Madeleine's disappearance. This week he gave a rare interview to Portuguese media and said he plans to lay low and leave Germany once he is released from prison.
The Maddie McCann case received worldwide interest for several years, with reports of sightings of McCann occurring as far away as Australia, while books and television documentaries were produced about her disappearance.
McCann's family marked the 18th anniversary of her disappearance last month, and expressed their determination to keep searching.
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