LISBON (AP) – Portuguese police have announced they will resume the search for Madeleine McCann British toddler who disappeared in the Algarve region of the country in 2007, over the next few days.
The Portuguese Criminal Police released a statement confirming local media reports that they would carry out the search at the request of German authorities and in the presence of British officers.
Earlier Monday, police officers were seen setting up tents and cordons in an area by the Arade Dam, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Praia da Luz, where the three-year-old was last seen alive.
British, Portuguese and German police officers are still reconstructing what happened when the toddler disappeared from her bed in the southern Portuguese resort on May 3, 2007. I was having dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.
In mid-2020, German police identified Christian Brückner, a 45-year-old German national who was in the Algarve in 2007, as a suspect in the case. Brueckner has denied any involvement.
The suspect is being investigated on suspicion of murder in the McCann case, but no charges have been filed. He spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
That’s what prosecutors in the northern German city of Braunschweig said in October has accused Brueckner in several individual cases It is about sexual offenses allegedly committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
Braunschweig public prosecutor Christian Wolter said on Monday his office would publish a statement on the case on Tuesday morning.
Madeleine’s disappearance attracted worldwide interest. There have been public claims that she has been seen as far away as Australia, and there have been numerous books and television documentaries about the case.
The rewards for finding Madeleine ran into millions of dollars.
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