Madeleine McCann: Portuguese and German police begin ...

A search by Portuguese and German police for Madeleine McCann has started 16 years after the three-year-old went missing in the Algarve, with police focusing on a peninsula jutting into a reservoir, 30 miles from where she disappeared.

Officers with pickaxes, chainsaws and rakes started to search the barren spot and surrounding woods by the Barragem do Arade reservoir in Portugal on Tuesday morning, fanning out across a piece of land roughly 500 sq metres in size.

The operation, which is expected to last two days, was requested by German police after a reported discovery of photos of Christian Brückner at his self-described “little paradise” near the town of Silves.

Brückner, a convicted rapist, was officially named by the Portuguese police as a suspect, or arguido, last year in the disappearance of the British child, who went missing from her parents’ holiday apartment in the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz in May 2007.

Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate, have not made any comment on the search, the first in this area since 2008 when “non-human origin” bones were discovered in a bag. Their daughter went missing from the bedroom she shared with her twin siblings Sean and Amelie, then 18 months, as her parents were eating a tapas meal within eye sight of the holiday apartment with friends.

Police had set up two tents for their forensic teams near the spot, where about 20 officers are focusing their search. The isolated area was designated a no-fly zone to allow the investigators to use a drone to spot signs of disturbance in the area. The main road leading to the reservoir was blocked to traffic.

Earlier on Tuesday, a police motor boat was seen on the water with two officers on it. There were no signs of diving in the vast reservoir, which has an average depth of about 14 metres.

Brückner spent time in the Algarve area and was known to have been near Praia da Luz at various points between 2000 and 2017.

German police said in June 2020 that the girl was assumed dead and Brückner, 45, was probably responsible for her disappearance. He has not been charged with any offences connected with Madeleine’s disappearance, and has denied any involvement.

On Monday evening, Portugal’s judicial police released a statement confirming media reports that they would conduct the search at the request of the German authorities and in the presence of British officials.

It is first major operation of its kind since June 2014, when the Metropolitan police received permission from Portuguese officials to search the holiday resort of Praia da Luz with search dogs and ground-penetrating radar.

The Met continues to treat Madeleine’s disappearance as a missing person case under Operation Grange.

Brückner is now in a German prison serving a sentence for rape. Last month, a German court said it was cancelling a sexual offences trial against Brückner on charges unrelated to McCann’s disappearance, on the grounds that the region where it is located is not the last place he lived in Germany.

He was charged last year by German prosecutors in Braunschweig with three offences of aggravated rape of women and two offences of sexual abuse of children. The alleged offences took place in Portugal between December 2000 and July 2017.