Madeleine McCann latest update: Search of Portugal reservoir ends as ‘materials’ sent away for tests

Police say materials recovered during a three-day search for evidence of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance at a remote reservoir in Portugal have been sent for analysis.

Authorities searched the Barragem do Arade reservoir in the Algarve this week, using sniffer dogs and cutting down trees as part of a search of the beach from the coastal resort where the three-year-old went missing in 2007.

As police wrapped up their three-day search on Thursday, they confirmed that “collected materials” had been sent to Germany for analysis.

Police are seen taking photographs at an excavation site near the banks of a remote reservoir in Portugal as the new search for Madeleine McCann enters its third day.

Officials continued their focus on a wooded area on a peninsula in Barragem do Arade on Thursday after the digging operation began on Wednesday afternoon.

Heavy machinery, which was used to cut down vast swaths of forest, was removed from the search area on Thursday afternoon amid reports that officials had been told to stop by 4pm.

A large section of the Barragem do Arade has been cordoned off since Tuesday morning, about 30 miles from where Madeleine went missing in 2007.

Officers used shovels to excavate their area of ​​focus, and sniffer dogs and pickaxes were also deployed during the search.

While some concentrated on the dug area, others used rakes and shovels to dig around, slowly making their way through the recently cut vegetation.

The operation was carried out at the request of German investigators who believe their main suspect, convicted sex offender Christian Brueckner, 45, kidnapped and killed the boy.

Sixteen years after Madeleine McCann disappeared from the holiday apartment in the Algarve where she was sleeping next to her twin baby brothers, police have launched a major new search for evidence.

After lying dormant for several years since David Cameron launched a fruitless Metropolitan Police inquiry in 2011, the case of the missing three-year-old was revived in 2020 when German prosecutors revealed a you are a new suspect.

But three years later, 43-year-old convicted pedophile Christian Brueckner – who denies any connection to the missing child – has yet to be charged, as he languishes in a German prison for raping the a 72-year-old American woman who is two. years before Madeleine’s disappearance at the same resort.

German prisoner Christian Brueckner was first named in connection with the unsolved mystery that summer, and was officially named a suspect last year. Her yellow and white VW T3 Westfalia campervan was reportedly spotted near the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal where the girl disappeared on May 3, 2007.

An investigation has been underway since Tuesday this week after German detectives were informed by a “very reliable source” that the main suspect Christian Brueckner visited the reservoir “a few days” after Madeleine disappeared.

However, The mirror reported that a police source said: “The GNR received instructions to stop at 4pm local time.”

Barragem do Arade is about 31 miles from the Praia da Luz resort where Maddy went missing. Investigators believe the 45-year-old killed Madeleine, who was three, after she was abducted from a holiday apartment.

Police searching for Madeleine McCann will begin a massive search in a remote Algarve reservoir visited by prime suspect Christian Brueckner.

Less than a mile away, Portuguese civil defense workers and police were seen setting up large blue tents.

An onlooker said: “There are about two dozen Policia Judiciaria officers who seem to be in charge of things at this stage.”

Portugal’s judicial police confirmed the reports of the German-led investigation on Monday evening, with German and British officials expected to arrive at the scene.

Watch a livestream of Portuguese police searching the Algarve reservoir on day three of the search for Madeleine McCann.

Kate and Gerry McCann’s eldest daughter disappeared from a Portuguese holiday resort 16 years ago but the emergence of a new suspect brings new hope for answers and closure: