Photo by Madeleine McCann in front of the British Houses of Parliament in London 2007
Photo: © Stephen Hird / Reuters/ REUTERS
More than 16 years after the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine "Maddie" McCann, Portuguese police are reportedly planning a new search operation. As Portuguese media reported on Monday, at the request of German investigators, a reservoir is to be searched from Tuesday, which is about 50 kilometers from the place where the British girl disappeared in 2007. Police barriers were already visible on television on Monday.
The girl had disappeared on May 3, 2007, shortly before her fourth birthday from her family's apartment in a resort in Praia da Luz on the southern Portuguese Algarve coast, while her parents were having dinner in a restaurant. Despite large-scale international manhunts, the case was never solved, and there is still no trace of Madeleine McCann.
Area searched as early as 2008
After years of investigation, there had been a surprising turn in the case in June 2020: The Braunschweig public prosecutor's office announced that it was conducting a murder investigation against the German Christian B. He has a criminal record for sexual offences and lived regularly in the Algarve from 1995 to 2007. However, the authority has not yet brought charges in the case.
According to the Portuguese weekly newspaper »Expresso«, B. had been to the Arade Dam near the small town of Silves several times during his stay in Portugal. According to reports in the Portuguese media, divers had already searched the area in 2008, but only found the remains of animals.
B. is currently serving a multi-year prison sentence following a final conviction for rape in Portugal in 2005. At the same time, the Braunschweig public prosecutor's office charged him last year with several other sex crimes that he allegedly committed between 2000 and 2017, also in Portugal.
SWE/AFP