Global Courant 2023-05-24 09:16:12
Work resumed this Wednesday, after a first day interrupted by adverse weather conditions in the Algarve, a tourist region in southern Portugal.
The new search for Madeleine MacCann, who disappeared in 2007, when she was three years old, from the room where she slept with her little brothers in a tourist complex in the Algarve, in the south of Portugal, will continue this Wednesday after a first day of work that had to be interrupted due to the storm and heavy rain that fell on that area.
The initial work was carried out discreetly and without revealing too much information in the Barragem do Arade reservoir, located about 50 kilometers from Praia da Luz, where the girl was kidnapped, and which was a place frequented by the main suspect in the disappearance, the German Christian Brueckner.
In fact, the Portuguese Judicial Police limited itself to confirming the carrying out of “new raids” with the aim of “fully clarifying the situation”, in addition to remarking that “the result of the procedure will be informed in a timely manner”.
What is known, for now, is that dozens of troops are participating in the investigations, conducted by the Portuguese Police and carried out at the request of the German Federal Criminal Investigation Office (BKA) and with the presence of British authorities.
They are carried out both on land, where several tents have been installed to support operations, and in the water of the reservoir, with boats and divers. From a distance, it could be seen how the authorities collected various objects.
Local media specified that they are looking for the remains of Madeleine’s body or any object belonging to the English girl, with the latest technology and dogs trained to detect dead people eventually buried up to 7 meters deep.
Private investigators had already carried out a search in the Arade dam, in 2008. They found a bag with bones, but they were from animals.
This Wednesday those responsible for the investigation hope to obtain some clue that will allow them to approach the resolution of a case that shocked the entire world 16 years ago.
The Madeleine McCann case: 16 years of mystery
Maddie disappeared on May 3, 2007, when she was three years old, from the room where she slept with her twin brothers, then two years old, in apartment 5A of the Ocean Club hotel complex, in Praia da Luz.
His parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were having dinner with friends at “Tapas”, the resort’s restaurant, about 50 meters from the room. They had arrived there at about 8:40 p.m. and every 20 minutes they took turns going to check on them and make sure everything was okay.
Around 10 p.m., after one of those visits, the little girl’s mother returned crying and screaming to the table. “They took her,” she repeated over and over again.
Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3, 2007, when she was three years old, from the room where she slept with her twin brothers, in a hotel complex in Praia da Luz.
After years of searching, the investigation focuses on Brueckner, a German citizen who lived in the Algarve at the time of the disappearance and who has a long history of crimes for sexual abuse and pedophilia, some of them in Portugal.
Suspicions against him gained weight after he was extradited from Portugal to Germany in 2017 accused of a case of sexual abuse of minors in Greece. He is currently in prison in Germany after several convictions for different crimes.
Investigation of her movements showed, from her mobile phone trace, that she was near the holiday complex where the McCanns were staying the night Madeleine was abducted.
Brueckner, who was never formally charged in this case despite being under investigation, spent long periods in the area with his motorhome and had images of the reservoir on his personal computer, according to local media reports.
German police found videos and photos believed to be buried in the pedophile’s “secret lair”, located in a dilapidated factory in the German town of Neuwegersleben, some 100 kilometers southeast of Hannover.
The discovery led to this new search operation, the most important in the last nine years, which began in the Barragem do Arade reservoir.
ES
