Portugal police launch new search for Madeleine McCann
The 18-year search for missing British toddler Madeleine McCann has resumed again in the Portuguese region where she disappeared in 2007.
Portuguese police have launched a new search for the child’s body in the country’s Algarve area, following a request from German authorities.
Portugal’s Judicial Police said it was executing a European Investigation Order on behalf of the public prosecutor’s office in the German city of Braunschweig.
In 2022, German citizen Christian Brueckner was officially identified as a suspect in McCann’s disappearance.
Brueckner has denied any involvement and has not been charged with any crime related to the high-profile unsolved missing person case.
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Portuguese police said “a wide range of investigations, namely search warrants” would be carried out from June 2-6 in Portugal’s Municipality of Lagos.
All evidence seized would be handed over to Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).
Brueckner reportedly lived in Portugal at the time of McCann’s disappearance, when she was holidaying with her family at a resort.
Madeleine and her younger siblings had been sleeping in a ground-floor apartment while their parents dined at a nearby restaurant.
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The McCanns checked on the children throughout the night until Madeleine was discovered missing at 8pm.
The search for traces of the child’s body will focus on an area between Praia da Luz, a civil parish belonging to Lagos, and one of the houses where Brueckner lived, according to news reports by CNN Portugal and German newspaper Bild.
German police said in June 2020 that McCann was assumed dead and that Brueckner was likely responsible.
Brueckner has denied any involvement.
The convicted child abuser and drug dealer is behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same area of the Algarve.
The last search for McCann was in May 2023, when police combed an inland reservoir in the Algarve. Nothing was found.
Braunschweig prosecutors told Reuters that “criminal procedural measures” related to the McCann case were taking place in Portugal involving the BKA. Portuguese law enforcement provided no further details.
London’s Metropolitan Police said it was aware of searches by the BKA in Portugal. It said it had no representation there but would “support our international colleagues where necessary”.
