Police to start new search near where toddler Madeleine McCann
disappeared in 2007
[June 03, 2025]
By SYLVIA HUI
LONDON (AP) — Police investigating the disappearance of British toddler
Madeleine McCann will carry out fresh searches near the Portuguese
holiday resort she was last seen 18 years ago, authorities said on
Monday.
The 3-year-old disappeared from her bed while on vacation with her
family in the Praia da Luz resort, in southern Portugal, on May 3, 2007.
She has not been seen since.
Detectives acting on a request from a German public prosecutor will
carry out “a broad range” of searches this week in the area of Lagos, in
southern Portugal, a Portuguese police statement said.
The main suspect in the case is a German national identified by media as
Christian Brueckner, who is currently serving a seven-year prison
sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005.
He is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case but
hasn’t been charged. He spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia
da Luz, around the time of the child's disappearance. Brueckner has
denied any involvement in her disappearance.
Prosecutors in Braunschweig, Germany, who are responsible for the
investigation, didn’t give details of the “judicial measures” taking
place in Portugal, according to Germany's dpa news agency. They said the
measures are being carried out by Portuguese authorities with support
from officers from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office.
Britain's Metropolitan Police said it was “aware of the searches being
carried by the BKA (German federal police) in Portugal as part of their
investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.”
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Gerry, left, and Kate McCann, parents of four-year old Madeleine
McCann, present a picture of their daughter during a press
conference in Berlin, Wednesday, June 6, 2007. (AP Photo/Sven
Kaestner, File)
“The Metropolitan Police Service is not present at the search, we will
support our international colleagues where necessary," the force added,
without giving more details.
The McCann case received worldwide interest for several years, with
reports of sightings of her stretching as far away as Australia as well
as books and television documentaries about her disappearance.
Almost two decades on, investigators in the U.K., Portugal and Germany
are still piecing together what happened on the night she disappeared.
She was in the same room as her brother and sister — 2-year-old twins —
while their parents, Kate and Gerry, had dinner with friends at a nearby
restaurant.
The last time police resumed searches in the case was in 2023, when
detectives from the three countries took part in an operation searching
near a dam and a reservoir about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Praia
da Luz resort.
Madeleine's family marked the 18th anniversary of her disappearance last
month, and expressed their determination to keep searching.
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