• Police extend search for clues on Madeleine McCann in Portuguese swamp

The Portuguese police, together with German and British troops, has resumed for the third consecutive day the search operation deployed in a reservoir in the Algarve (southern Portugal) for the disappearance of the English girl Madeleine McCann 16 years ago.

The operation, initially scheduled for two days, was extended until Thursday after the rainstorm that forced the early suspension of searches at the Arade dam on Tuesday.

Sources of the Portuguese Judicial Police consulted by Efe avoided specifying if the search work will conclude today and insisted that they cannot specify if there will be new information about the case.

At the request of the German police, the agents search a reservoir that is located about 50 kilometers from Praia da Luz, where the minor was kidnapped 16 years ago, a place frequented by the main suspect in the case, the German Christian Brueckner.

Brueckner also had images of this area on his computer, according to local media, which indicate that the tip of an informant led the German authorities to request search work in the reservoir.

On Wednesday, the search focused on an area very limited by the police, who relied on heavy machinery, dogs, georadars and drones.

During the operation, in which dozens of agents participate, material stored in bags has been collected for analysis.

The area was already searched in 2008 by private investigators without success but experts in forensic medicine agree that the technological advances of recent years are fundamental to solve the case if evidence is finally found about the disappearance of the girl.

Madeleine was three years old when she disappeared – on May 3, 2007 – from the room where she slept with her younger siblings in a tourist complex in Praia da Luz.

After years of investigation, the case took a turn in 2020 and the German Christian Brueckner, imprisoned in his country for other crimes, became the main suspect.

The German Prosecutor's Office in Braunschweig works with the theory that Madeleine died at the hands of Brueckner, who has a long history of crimes for sexual abuse and pedophilia, some of them in Portugal.

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