New search to begin for Madeleine McCann, UK toddler missing since 2007, Portuguese police confirm

LISBON (AP) — Portuguese police have said they will resume their search for Madeleine McCann, the British girl who went missing in the country’s Algarve region in 2007, in the coming days.

The Portuguese Judicial Police issued 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 officials.

Earlier on Monday, police were seen erecting tents and cordons in an area next to the Arade dam, about 50 miles from Praia da Luz, where the 3-year-old girl was last seen alive.

British, Portuguese and German police are still piecing together what happened when the girl disappeared from her bed in the southern Portuguese resort on May 3, 2007. She was in the same room as her 2-year-old twin brother and sister while her parents had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.

In mid-2020, German police identified Christian Brueckner, a 45-year-old German citizen who was in the Algarve in 2007, as a suspect in the case. Brueckner has denied any involvement.

The suspect is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case, but has not been charged. He spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.

In October, prosecutors in the northern German city of Braunschweig indicted Brueckner in several separate cases involving sexual crimes allegedly committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

Braunschweig prosecutor Christian Wolter said on Monday that his office would issue a statement on the case on Tuesday morning.

Madeleine’s disappearance sparked worldwide interest, with public claims to have seen her spreading as far as Australia, along with a host of books and television documentaries about the case.