German police said in June 2020 that Madeleine was presumed dead.
Lisbon:
Portuguese police will on Tuesday search a reservoir inland from where British three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared in 2007, officials said on Monday in the first formal incident in Portugal in years.
A fire department spokesman said police were preparing to launch a search on Tuesday at a dam in the southern region of the Algarve about 50 km (31.07 miles) inland from a beach resort where Madeleine was staying during a family holiday. had gone missing from K’s apartment.
A source familiar with the investigation told Reuters that the operation in Silves municipality was being carried out at the request of German authorities, who last year formally identified German man Christian Brueckner as the official suspect in McCann’s disappearance.
There was no immediate comment from German officials. Portugal’s investigative judicial police in charge of the operation declined to comment.
A separate source familiar with the investigation was not optimistic about the chances of a breakthrough in the long-running case, saying: “It will come to nothing”.
Brueckner, a convicted child abuser and drug dealer, is behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same region of the Algarve from which Madeleine went missing.
German police said in June 2020 that Madeleine was presumed dead and that Brueckner was responsible. Bruckner has denied any involvement and has not been charged with any crime related to it.
A German court last month dismissed additional charges against him related to other Portuguese child rape and sexual assault cases, meaning German prosecutors probing “Maddie’s” disappearance now have the opportunity to investigate. There was no jurisdiction.
Maddie’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann were questioned by Portuguese police as formal suspects in 2007, but police dropped their investigation the following year citing a lack of evidence and cleared them of any involvement.
The parents have since campaigned to draw attention to their daughter’s disappearance, and British public figures ranging from business tycoons to authors and soccer stars have appealed for information.
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